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Book - -^^ O ^ 



COP^OIIGHT DEPOSrC 



SONGS OF 
COLORADO 

AND OTHER PLACES 
BY 

AGNES K. GIBBS 




BOSTON 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

MCMXVI 



♦ «...' • '. •.•♦ ^\ 

Copyright, 1916, by Agnes K. Gibbs*^ . 
All Rights Reserved 



\i 






The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



HOV -6 1916 



'CI.A44622i 

1a '• ■ 



TO ALL MY FRIENDS 

AND TO ALL LOVERS OF COLORADO 

I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE 

VOLUME OF VERSE 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Invocation 9 

Hymn of the Lifted Lands 11 

Songs of the Cabin 

In the Winter Evenings 21 

A Fortune for Edith I . . 22 

A Prayer for Eleanor 24 

The Coyote 26 

Alone in the Cabin 28 

At the End of the Way 29 

She and the Oracle 31 

Song at Night 32 

My Princess 33 

To the Spirit of Hope 35 

Brook Song 2)7 

"Following Duty" 38 

Song of a Nest 40 

Dorothy Darling 41 

Daughter Jane 43 

A Face Within a Bonnet 46 

My Guest 47 

For Edith (On a Stormy Day) 51 

At the Window 53 

Sea Born 55 

The Building of a House 56 

Disillusion 60 

The Singer and the Song 61 

Gladys at the Stile 62 

Evening on the Ranch 64 

Waning Hours 66 

Waking Dreams 68 

Serenade 71 

A Changeling 72 

Songs of the Trail 

"Wlien My Ship Comes In" 83 

Songs in March 85 

Old Jim of the Ranch 86 

September 91 

Mountain Flax 93 

Storm Song in August 95 

5 



PAGE 

Little Boy Blue Again 97 

In the Gloaming 99 

Eastertide loi 

Under the Pines 102 

A Requiem 104 

Exiled 105 

In God's Acre 107 

Children's Land 109 

Late Afternoon no 

Guss of the Service in 

The Wind 113 

Will o' the Wisp 114 

Flax Flowers 116 

Hymn of the Conquered 117 

On the Summits 120 

Enchantment 121 

Outdoor Song 122 

Morning in Colorado Springs 123 

On the Highway 124 

Midwinter 126 

Colorado Philosophy 127 

Songs of Other Places 

"Naturalized Citizens" 131 

Longing 137 

. Allegiance • 139 

Via Dolorosa 140 

Norse Love Song of Farewell 142 

Norse Love Song of Longing 144 

"As Unto Others" 145 

Beside the Easel 147 

Needs 155 

The Child of Galilee 158 

Vale 162 

To Those in Pain 164 

Humoring Echo 165 

De Profundis 167 

As It Was in the Beginning 168 

God Knoweth Why 173 

World Prayer — August, 1914 175 

The Frost Spirit 177 

An Easter Guest 180 

6 



SONGS OF COLORADO 



INVOCATION 

Delicate sprite of the viewless ether, 
Hitherward hasten on pitying xving! 

Come from the depths of the Maytide weather — 
Your biding place in the heart of Spring! 

To-day no voices of hope are singing. 
Leaden clouds under frowning skies; 

Ragged 7nists to the grim rocks clinging 
The visible heaven and earth comprise. 

The promise of Spring from the hills has faded; 

The wind is moaning in dull distress; 
Earth lies iveary, and broiun, and jaded. 

Ugly, and sick of her ugliness! 

The chain that fetters my restless spirit 
Was never so heavy and dark of hue; 

Little desire have I to wear it. 
Bitter to-day is my need of you! 

Come to me, therefore, child of the skylands, 

Spirit of poesy, all a-gleam 
With the radiant light of those fairy islands, 

The loved Home Land of the poet's dream! 

Come to me, spirit, this gloom invading 

With the light of your own world, shadoiuless; 

Its buoyant hope, and its faith unfading. 
And the grace of its deathless loveliness! 

Cripple Creek 
1900 



HYMN OF THE LIFTED LANDS 

{Dedicated to tny brothers) 

Oh, that a poet might rise that could worthily 

sing thee, Beloved ! 
Mother of mine by adoption, home of my heart, 

Colorado! 
Oh, that a painter transcendent might see thee as 

I have beheld thee, 
Year after year through the seasons, silently gazing 

upon thee; 
Noting thy glories of color with measureless joy in 

their changes ; 
Marking thy outlines majestic with pride inter- 
mingled with reverence. 
Oh, that a poet and painter — an Angelo — knew thee 

as I know — 
One who could fitly interpret thy witchery, majesty, 

splendor! 
I can but honor thee dumbly, longing to praise, 

but unable — 
Love thee, cling to thy bosom with grateful and 

filial devotion. 



Far from the turbulent oceans, in the heart of the 

Continent nestled, 
(Jewel most precious and rare in the glittering 

crown of the nation;) 
Midway the National bounds — on the south, the 

blue sweep of the Gulf Stream, 
The wide rolling Rio Del Norte, and sun-kissed 

plateaus of Chihuahua — 
Northward the numberless waters of Manitoba and 

Columbia, 

II 



She hath established her dais, the young-eyed queen, 

Colorado ! 
She dwells with the winds and the eagles ; the height 

of the land is her footstool; 
Her strong hands, lifted in worship, or folded in 

calm meditation, 
She looketh afar, undaunted; unheeding the baubles 

we sigh for. 
All those who rightly behold her, may read on that 

beautiful forehead 
A shining inscription, her watchwords — Liberty; 

Peace; Consecration. 

Down through her echoing canons her wild rivers 
leap to the lowlands. 

Tossing their manes in the sunlight; scorning the 
uses of commerce ; 

Untamed, and proudly refusing to ever be servants 
of traffic. 

Westward the Grand and the Yampa storm through 
the solitudes olden. 

Rushing to meet the Pacific down the terrible gorge 
of the desert; 

Gaily the Platte dances northward, to greet the rich 
fields of Nebraska. 

Down its wide, orchard-gemmed valley the Arkansas 
sweeps to the eastward. 

Kissing the Father of Waters in the shade of mag- 
nolia and cypress; 

From the sand dunes of lonely San Luis, to glitter- 
ing Mexican beaches 

Under the cactus and yucca the lone Rio Grande 
rolls southward. 

These five, her eldest and strongest, she sends forth 
to greet the two oceans; 

12 



But between (in the warm breathing soutlilantl, 

through Cottonwood shaded arroyas, 
From Rio Las Animas eastward, where coke fires of 

Trinidad ghmmer, 
To the murmuring Rio Dolores, in the Cliff 

Dwellers' old, haunted regions, 
Through the storm-riven deeps of Elk Mountains, 

where the Crystal and Eagle are cradled, 
To the pine-dotted parks of the northland that 

nourish St. Vrain and La Poudre — ) 
The myriad mountain born streamlets commingle 

their clear ringing voices. 

Mother of wild, wide spaces, herself being Liberty's 

daughter — 
Not alone are her streams in their daring allegiance 

to Freedom. 
There is no spot on her breast where the spirit of 

liberty breathes not. 
Its pennons float on her mountains — from Medicine 

Bow to Culebra, 
Elbert, Arapahoe; Massive; Shavano; Silverheels; 

Blanca ; 
The landmark,* far-famed, well-beloved, that looks 

from the crest of the Ramparts; 
Every imperial peak of the matchless Sangre Di 

Christo — 
The wilderness, storm-torn and lonely, where Holy 

Cross is uplifted — 
The quiet, pastoral hills that shadow the Cache La 

Poudre ; 
And the dim, blue, desolate buttes of Las Animas, 

Fremont, Pueblo — 
There is no summit of hers, however lofty or lowly, 
* Pike's Peak. 

13 



But throws to the crystalline ether invisible banners 
of Freedom. 

Her wild winds sing of it, shout it, as they race over 

golden brown mesas; 
The breast of her meadow lark thrills it, in the 

roseate flush of the sunrise; 
The branch of her upland pine, and her flower of 

the prairie sing it; 
It is known in the cry of her night hawk; the royal 

flight of her eagle; 
Man's insatiate greed may stifle its strength for a 

season — 
But the fashion of this world changeth, God and 

Right are eternal. 
Freedom shall reign again in these wilds that are 

consecrate to it — 
Freedom for high and for low; for the w^orkman; 

the black man ; the alien ; 
A new and a nobler conception that shall scorn the 

old meum et tuum ; 
That shall look in the face of the neighbor with the 

eye of a generous Manhood, 
Cordially saying, believing — "The rights of my 

brother are sacred!" 

You who have loved Colorado, if you have known, 

understood her, 
Surely you also have known the invisible life of her 

mountains. 
Canons, arroyas, and mesas; limitless, wind-swept 

expanses ? 
Have you been never aware of presences, innocent, 

joyous, 

14 



Kneeling beside her waters, dancing over the prai- 
rie? 

Whose loving e>es. through the spruces, greet you 
in friendliest fashion. 

Whose kind hands beckon and hail you between 
the stems of the aspens? 

Whose footfalls sound at your side in the mist, 
in the hush of the twilight. 

Whose voices sing through the blizzard of Spring 
that again shall awaken? 

Never tortured, as we are, by hunger and thirst 
of the spirit 

They, at the meal universal, partake of its peace- 
fulness only. 

Ever by spirits like these are her footsteps attended, 

my Princess! 
Ministrants loyal and tender; acolytes pure-eyed, 

devoted ; 
Vowed to her grave, sweet service ; her ritual calm 

of the spirit. 
They kindle the fires unseen that burn on her cloud- 
kissing altars; 
Swing the invisible censers whose incense is breathed 

through her forests ; 
Theirs are the voiceless hymns that are heard in 

the whirl of the snowstorm; 
The reverent hush of the prairie; the Sabbath that 

broods in the pinons. 



All that / owe thee, my Home State! words have no 

power of telling; 
Thou hast been mother indeed, since the years of 

my soon-orphaned childhood. 
15 



Through a career full of changes, wanderings many 

and lonely, 
Ever the influence pure of thy mystical beauty hath 

led me 
Slowly, unconsciously nearer the infinite God that 

I knew not! 
The gold-flecked snows of thy peaks; the ineffable 

azure above them; 
The voice of thy lonely wind over prairie, canon, 

and forest; 
The tumult and glory and joy of thy down-rushing, 

generous waters — 
All were as voices celestial, guiding me, calling, 

compelling 
My spirit, untutored and wayward, to worship the 

source of all beauty. 
Poor was that worship indeed, only a dim adoration, 
A doubting, sad-hearted desire to believe as my 

fathers before me. 
Always held back and enchained by a blinded, mis- 
taken, "I cannot!" 

Now that at last I have found Him, grander than 

aught I had dreamed of, 
Mightier, lowlier, nearer, the one satisfying Ideal — 
Now with a love how much deeper I gaze on thy 

face, Colorado! 
Now when I lean on thy bosom to look in the blue 

arch above thee, 
My heart, like a song-bird, is lifted to the Power 

who gave thee thy glory. 

Siloani, Colorado. 
1 90s- 19 1 5 

16 



The local pronunciation of some of the Spanish 
and Indian proper names, and other words, is as 
follows : 

Rio del Norte Ree-o Del Nor-tz ; or 

more often, Ree-o Del 
Nort 

Chihuahua Shee-zt'^/r-wah 

Arkansas ^A-kan-saw 

Rio Grande Ree-o Gran-dee, more oft- 
en, Ree-o Grand 

Rio Las Animas Ree-o hzs-An-i-mzs 

Rio Dolores Ree-o Dol-or-ees 

Arapahoe A-rap-a-ho 

Shavano Shav-a-no 

Culebra Cu-leb-ra. 

Cache Le Poudre Cash Le-Poo-der 

Arroya Ar-roj^-yah 

Canon Can-yon 

Mesa May-sah 

Pinon Pin-yon 



17 



SONGS OF THE CABIN 



IN THE WINTER EVENINGS 

The children laugh out in the firelight's glow; 
They laugh, for they know not the meaning of woe. 
Their life is at most but a June holiday; 
Laugh on, little jesters! be glad while ye may! 

The children are dancing, their light little feet 
Repeat in the house-place a melody sweet. 
From threshold to ingle they glide to and fro. 
Glad feet! may you never grow languid and slow. 

The children are singing; they lilt a refrain. 
Then joyously break into laughter again; 
They banish depression, can life be all sad, 
Where the children find in it so much that is glad? 

The children are praying, with golden heads bowed, 
With dimpled hands folded, in holiest mood. 
Send fearlessly, pure ones, your orisons mild 
To the ear of 3'our Savior; He once was a child! 

Rocky Mead Ra?ich, Custer Co. 
1887 



21 



A FORTUNE FOR EDITH 

Would you know your fortune, Edith? 

I will tell it for you, dear; 
Cross my palm with silver-kisses! 

Lay your hands, palm upward, here. 

Ah! the dimpled arms are lifted. 
Pressed instead about my neck — 

Golden head upon my shoulder — 
Rosy lips against my cheek! 

By this token, O my Edith! 

I can tell j^our fortune true; 
Palaces and many lovers; 

Gold and gems are waiting you! 

Palaces shall be all places. 

Though but lowly, where you are ; 

You shall fill them with heart's sunshine, 
You shall make them rich and fair. 



All who know shall love you, Edith ; 

Love from all shall be your mead. 
Happy those who dwell about you; 

They shall hold "rich gifts" indeed. 

You shall carry gold in plenty 
In your hands where'er you be ; 

Golden hope and golden courage, 
And thrice-golden charity. 
22 



Loving hearts are jewels, Edith, 
Peerless, priceless, richer far 

Than the fairest pearls and rubies, 
Diamonds and sapphires are! 

Darling, is the fortune pleasing 
I have pictured out for j'ou? 

Would you have it? You may take it! 
You have power to make it true. 

Eager to help others, Edith, 
Reaching generous hands to all, 

Stifling all your own complaining; 
Giving smiles when tears would fall. 

Praying not for ease or riches ; 

Praying not for fame or bliss; 
But to lighten other's burdens, 

Cheer their sorrows, — only this. 

God will hear such prayers, my Edith ; 

Never dream He does not hear; 
God will hear them, and will answer; 

He will make your fortune, dear! 

Rocky Mead Ranch 
1887 



23 



A PRAYER FOR ELEANOR 

With the sunlight o'er her streaming, 
Stands our little mountain flower ; 

She herself a portion seeming 
Of the radiant morning hour; 



All its beauties in her blending, 
And its tender witcheries; 

As the sky above her bending, 
Pure and shadowless she is. 



Bright the mountain sunrise glory 
Shines upon her face and hair 

(And, less vain and transitory 
Inward light remaineth there 

Every alien shade estranging) ; 

And the blue of western skies, 
Ever sweet, though ever changing, 

Shines within her joyous eyes. 



Little one, to you was given, 
For a birth-gift, loveliness; 

May the Father, from high heaven, 
You with rarer treasures bless — 



Set your gems of grace and beauty, 

In fine gold — nobility ; 
Calm devotedness to duty; 

Love of labor; bravery. 
• 24 



Cheerfulness, and truth unvarnished 
May you have, and oh. may He 

Help you keep, through life, untarnished, 
Childhood's holy purity. 

Faith not chained by narrow fetter. 
Love that strives to image His; 

Dear one! may you be far better 
Than the suppliant for you is! 

Rocky Mead Ranch 
il 



25 



THE COYOTE 

The chilly stars are trembling at the touch of 
winter's fingers ; 
From a spruce bough's cosy shelter, through his 
mufflers, hoots the owl; 
Close beside the cabin window, silence, world-old, 
solemn, lingers. 
Till across the lonely mesa, comes the coyote's 
wavering howl. 

Half appealing, half defiant, formed of maniac's 
awful laughter ; 
Terror, wickedness exultant; cynic's sneer, and 
woman's wail ; 
Sharp and sudden in its ceasing, as its starting was, 
but after, 
Cliff and cave and stream and forest all take up 
the eerie tale. 



The restless wind, upstarting, from his fitful, broken 
slumber, 
Rushes, moaning, through the piiions; Silence, 
shuddering, hides her face; 
Over yonder in the canon ghosts and spirits without 
number 
Join in wordless lamentation for a long-forgotten 
race ! 

Prayers man never uttered yet, beneath a Christian 
steeple ; 
Hymns and chants forever strangers to the rit- 
ual, cross and cowl; 
26 



The love-songs, war-songs, dirges, of a wild and 
untaught people, 
All mingle in the echoes that succeed the cojote's 
howl. 

It ends! Returning Silence wraps her silky mantle 
round me ; 
The pleasant household spirits, light and warmth 
and rest, draw nigher; 
Once more descends the deep content in which that 
outcry found me! 
In the box-stove's genial bosom glows the gay 
familiar fire. 

Fairbrook Ranch, Greenwood, Colorado 
igo2 



27 



ALONE IN THE CABIN 

Come to me, O my darling, darling! 

Black is the night — not a gleam of a star ! 
Sadly the spirits of darkness are wailing; 
Slowly ?ny spirit is sinking and failing; 

I am so lonely when you are afar ! 
Come to me soon ! 

Come to me, O my darling, darling! 

Hope is a-droop, not a lift of her wing! 
Courage and gladness with you have departed ; 
I grow so weary, so desolate-hearted ; 

Work loses glory, and laughter its ring! 
Come to me soon ! 

Come to me, O my darling, darling! 

When j'ou are here, not a pain dare intrude! 
Care flies away from your strength and your bright- 
ness ; 
You bring with you beauty, contentment and light- 
ness; 
Laughter, couragcousness, limitless good ! 
Come to me soon ! 



28 



AT THE END OF THE WAY 

Two women stood, with entwining hands, 

Looking over their fading past. 
On a wave-beat shore in the twilight lands- 

That shore where all of us stand at last. 



One looked over a checkered way 

With yearning eyes; in a wistful voice 
She murmured, "I've known both night and day, 

I have had reason to mourn, and rejoice; 
I know the pain-prick of sword — and crown! 

I've scaled the summits of art and fame; 
I've stumbled the slopes of failure down ; 

I've sounded all deeps but those of shame ; 
I've quaffed life's bitterest poverty. 

And sipped the foam of its richest wine ; 
But the one thing dearest was held from ?ne — 

Aly heart's desire has never been mine! 



The other made answer, in gentle tone. 

With the patient smile that will not complain ; 
"A prosperous lot has been my own, 

Little I know of change and strain ; 
Less of the fever and toil and strife. 

Naught of the crowns that were given to you ; 
The quiet tasks of a mother and wife 

Were the only ones I was set to do. 
I've moved the threshold and hearth between, 

Safe from the mad world's riotry; 
And the one deep ivoe of my life has been 

My heart's desire, that ivas granted me! 
29 



/ pray yon, sibyl and prophetess. 

Poet and oracle, answer me! 
JFhich of these women had agonized less? 

Which had the bitterer destiny? 
She u'ho stood at the Dead Sea's side 

After the scorching of frost and fire, 
With a lifelong hunger unsatisfied? 

Or she ivho was cursed zvith her heart's desire} 

Cripple Creek 
IQOO 



30 



SHE AND THE ORACLE 

Daisy, you sibyl with wisdom replete, 

Bright little prophetess! 
Does he love me, or does he not, Marguerite? 

Will your answer be no or yes? 

I touch your petals, half hesitant. 

You look so merry and sly! 
But there's sympathy with the wisdom blent 

In that knowing golden eye. 

You're aware of the whole, and would answer me 
true, 

But were it not cruel and sad 
That beautiful life should end for you 

To make me sorry or glad 

Just for an hour? No, linger awhile 

In your own green nest, and prove 
Each day to my heart by that trustful smile 

That the Universe brims with love! 

Besides, there's another reason sweet 

Why I leave you unrifled here; 
I need not question you, Marguerite, 

For I know that he loves me, dear! 

Glen Lodge 
1903 



31 



SONG AT NIGHT 

At last — at last, the heat, the choking dust. 

The jarring noises of the day are done; 

I am alone with night. Lean closer, sky! 

Fold me about with thy cool stainlessness. 

O golden stars, speak to my soul again! 

Wind in the pines, sing to me as of old! 

Spirit beyond the pines — beyond the stars — 

O Song God, touch my lips and sing through me! 

Teach me to voice the beauty of the world ! 

Colorado Springs 
1914 



32 



MY PRINCESS 

Sara, Ruth; "A Princess." "Blooming." 
Lovely are these names of yours, 

Child, whose soft-tressed head, dark glooming 
Knows no crowns but leaves and flowers 



In this sunny, care-free morning. 

Of your lightly flying youth ; 
Come, for that dark head's adorning. 

Choose a coronet, my Ruth. 

Let us search the Ancient Story, 

And its chronicles shall show 

Which good woman's crown of glory 

Best shall fit this darling brow; 

Not bright Miriam's though they blest her 
When she led the tribes with song; 

Better patriot than sister — 

Though like her, we'd have j'ou strong. 

Nor that mother's by the palm tree, 

(Deborah of prophecies;) 
Nation's ruler you will ne'er be — 

Though our Princess should be wise ! 

Warlike Jael's helm of splendor, 

Would it suit a brow so fair? 
Nay, a coronet more tender. 

Princess, we would have you wear. 
33 



Not the one of regal beauty 
Esther's midnight tresses bore; 

But the crown of love and duty 

That your sweet first namesake wore. 

Gentlest stranger! Daughter loyal! 

Pure-eyed gleaner in the corn ! 
We'd not seek a crown more royal 

Our own Princess to adorn. 

Though perhaps not splendid, beauteous, 
Our young Queen, to be complete, 

Shall be cheerful, prudent, duteous. 
Strong, unselfish, faithful, sweet. 

Leaving grander crowns to others, 
Choose the truest one of youth ; 

Joy of sisters, parents, brothers — 
Be a household angel, Ruth ! 

Rocky Mead Ranch 
1889 



34 



TO THE SPIRIT OF HOPE 

Angel serene, through the blue ether drifting, 

Heaven-born child, ever calm, unrepining; 

Still floating onward, your glad eyes uplifting, 

Purely adoring the light that shines o'er you — 
Turn for awhile from that infinite shining. 

Gaze on the sad world that reels here before 
you — 
Haste on your white wings down Earth's darkened 
slope ; 
Go where its mourners are silently wailing; 
Glide into homes that are loveless and dreary; 

Seek out the erring, the weak, and the failing, 
Bend o'er the desolate, kneel by the weary ; 
Beautiful Hope ! 

Tell them of things it is good to remember — 

That sweetness and strength may be garnered 

from sorrow; 

Long, long is the winter, but spring shall awaken ; 

The frost of to-day brings the rose of to-morrow'; 

The spirit, chilled now with the cold of December, 

By misery daunted, by courage forsaken, 
Shall rise, for no heart is all loveless or friendless — 

Shall rise, reinspired, and eager to cope 
With the sorrows that darkened the light of its 
morning; 
"For," whisper, "though night seemeth starless 
and endless, 
The day shall return, with its radiant adorning — " 
Beautiful Hope! 



35 



Sing of the infinite Love that enfolds us, 

AH Earth's poor children, so wearily straying; 
Love that amid life's confusion shall heed us, 
And answer aright all our ignorant praying; 
Love that forgives us, receives us, upholds us; 

Love that at last shall most tenderly lead us 
To Peace where our tears are remembered no 

longer ; 
Sing through the silence that lingers around them; 

Sing till they heed you and cease still to grope 
In the blindness of pain and despair that has bound 
them. 
Clasp your strong hand in their own, growing 
stronger. 

Beautiful Hope! 

Siloam 
1905 



36 



BROOK SONG 

The brown brook underneath the hill 

My tireless companion is. 
Its chiming voice is never still, 

It sings of both our destinies! 

Of its own fate — the southern sea — 
Of palm-crowned isle and coral strand 

But what it prophesies for me, 
I cannot always understand. 

How ceaselessly it runs away 

Below the harebell, rock, and pine! 

I hear its accents night and day ; 

They chord with every mood of mine. 

Sometimes it sings me memories 
And, drifting with its magic flow, 

I'm back in happier days than these, 
The glamour of a year ago! 

Sometimes it moans: — "The way is long; 

The sky is dark and cold with rain !" 
Again it pipes a sweeter song! — 

"Hope on! The sun will shine again!" 

O Fate ! Befriend the bonny stream ! 

Safe lead it to the waiting sea. 
And realize my cherished dream, 

Bring back my happiness to me! 



37 



"FOLLOWING DUTY" 

My little friend, I know your feet grow weary 
In the dull, workday road that they must tread; 

And that, too often, life looks gray and dreary, 
With little pleasure passed, or joy ahead. 

Sometimes the tempting thought comes — "I am 
fitter 

For other tasks; in other, brighter scenes, 
I could be more contented, cheerful, better ; 

I could do fairer work with fairer means!" 

Dear, if you'd fill your life with wealth and beauty, 
Have all your time in satisfaction spent; 

Make it your constant aim to follow duty; 
That is the perfect secret of content. 

If we can look our conduct over fairly. 
At evening's close, before we go to rest. 

Saying within the inmost heart sincerely, 

"Through all this day I've tried to do my best" — 

Then we may sink to slumber calmly, sweetly, 
Though hard the bed, the chamber plain and bare; 

We may rest utterly, forget completely 
Crosses of deprivation, toil, and care. 

"How shall I know that I am following purely?" 
You question me with half-reproachful eyes; 

"In this dim world, can any one know surely 
Always in which direction dutv lies?" 
38 



It lies, dear, in responding, promptly, bravel.v. 
Surrendering self in action, word, and thought, 

When the voice deep within us whispers gravely, 
"I ought not," or, more urgently, "I ought!" 

At the "I ought," to rise at once and gather 
For the next task whatever tools we need ; 

At the "ought not," to pause — not one step farther 
Along that line of speech, or thought, or deed! 

So you shall do your duty to your brother, 

God, and the State, for in these broad words lie 

Love of the right, faithfulness to each other, 
Honor and truth, and truest charity. 

At the Sawmill, Greenivood 
igo2 



39 



A SONG OF A NEST 

My heart's love holds a nest, bej'ond the blue hill's 

shadows, 
Hidden among the pines, gemmed round with up- 
land meadows, 
Where, all night long, the west winds o'er it sing, 
And mingle with the stream's low murmuring. 

Make music to it, waters softly flowing! 

Wing rest to it, j'e breezes eastward blowing; 

Shelter it, O ye pines and mountains hoary; 

Ye radiant star-rays, gild it with your glory, 

O silver moonbeams, fold it, softly, purely; 

O watching angels! guard it, truly, surely; 
O God of angels, star-rays, moonbeams tender, 
The pine's deep shadow, and the mountain's splen- 
dor, 
My little birdlings in thy dear love keep — 
Under Thy holy eyes, sweet be their sleep ! 

Pueblo 
1888 



40 



DOROTHY DARLING 

CHILD of our tenderest loving — 
Dorothy, gift of God ! 

1 never have seen you, dear baby ; 
The long miles of blossoming sod 

And the wild ranges stretch out between us. 

Ah, could I but borrow the flight 
Of the breezes, and speed forth to greet you, 

In your home in the south land to-night! 

But I pray for you here, little darling, 

As I gaze on your bright pictured face ; 
What matters the distance between us? 

Love needeth not hour nor place ! 
My feet are bound here on the prairie ; 

In dreams all the leagues I have trod, 
I kneel by you, Dorothy Darling, 

Dorothy, gift of God ! 

Our gift! We have asked; He has given 

In measure o'erflowing, 'tis true ; 
But still, on His bounty relying, 

I ask other blessings for you. 
Ah, Dorothy, may they be granted; 

Wherever your pathway may trend, 
Whatever of sorrow assail you. 

May you carry these gifts to the end; 

Love of God ; love of Man ; love of Nature ; 

Of labor, and learning, and art, 
(Hold these, dear, and value but lightly 

Ideals of ballroom and mart) ; 
41 



A deep love, ungrudging and tender, 
For all who are worsted in life; 

For the trusting dumb creatures, our brothers; 
For the fallen, o'ercome in the strife. 

A gladness, spontaneous, undying, 

Heart's joy, that shall never know blight; 
A courage farseeing and steadfast. 

To choose and abide by the right; 
To recognize only the highest; 

To turn from all standards unreal 
And follow, through brightness and shadow 

The light of one deathless ideal — 
The pathway so straight, so compelling, 

The Christ feet in Galilee trod. 
Will you follow it, Dorothy Darling? 

Dorothy, gift of God? 

Siloam 
1905 



42 



DAUGHTER JANE 

What on the airth has come to Jane 
These few months back? It ain't no time — 
Leastways it seems no time at all — 
Sence she was tarin' down the lane 
A-runnin' races with the boys, 
An' doin' her straight best to climb 
The tallest pear-tree; playin' ball 
With Jim, an' singin' everywhere. 
The whole blame place seemed full o' noise. 
An' Jane, an' sunshine. Swan! it's queer; 
What's taken her? 

Now she's as still as any mouse, 

An' jest goes stealin' round the house 

So busy over household things! 

An' scursely talks, an' if she sings 

'Tain't "Way Down South," or "Nancy Lee," 

As some whiles back it uster be, 

But songs you have to sing right low, 

Chuck full of moons an' stars, y' know, 

And walks 'neath budding orchard limbs; 

Or else a lot of Gospel hymns! 

She's changed from what she was last year; 
My pretty little tom-boy gal ! 
Warn't no one looked as sweet as her, 
Although her gownd was alius torn 
By scrambling through the brush with Hal 
When they was on their fishin' trips; 
Her head-gear, too, was all forlorn. 
But her straw bonnet's flappin' brim 
Could never hide her shinin' eyes — 
43 



But NOW she's alius fine an' trim — 
A gownd that's made up city-wise; 
Ribbons to match her cherry lips — 
Though nothing's sweet as them, I swar! 
The neatest shoes an' gloves, an' all ; 
She looks so slick, I scurcely dar 
To kiss her now, I feel that small 
'Fore my own gal ! 

She don't go fishin' trips no more ; 

Nor rolling marbles on the floor; 

Nor playin' ball; nor quarrelin' — 

Good Land! thar hain't a bit of din 

Whar Janey is! So helpful, too. 

She's growed; she hain't no more to do 

With Billy's rabbits, Tom's new gun ; 

She's jest as good to either one 

Of her four brothers, every bit — 

Or, now I come to think of it, 

She's better than she uster be 

Afore she changed so mightily; 

She scurcely has a word to say. 

But helps 'em in a quiet way; 

An' never preaches, never scolds, 

But mends their socks, and cures their colds, 

An' cooks the things they like the best; 

An' she's so good to all the rest — 

Alius obedient, lovin', mild, 

Ter me an' IVIother — Bless the Child! 

Our gal's a'most a saint, that's plain ; 
Not only us, but other folks 
Remark she's growed so sweet, an' all; 
Even that rascal, young John Stokes, 
44 



Is influenced for good by Jane; 
The change in John is very great; 
No, no! the boy's not bad at all, 
I didn't mean no harm of John ; 
He's jest a cut-up, and of late 
He's growed a good bit steadier; 
He certainly is gettin' on! 
And jest sence he's bin coming here; 
He came fust time last March, and sence, 
He's changed so much that Tom and Jim 
Cain't he'p but speak of it, but I 
Know jest what's bin improving him; 
Of course it's Jane's good influence! 
Good Land! She can't be going to die! 
What's taken Janey, Mother? Hey? 
You'd think I'd know, 'thout bein larnedf 
Why, what on airth! Engaged, you say? 
Well— I'll— be— darned ! 

Wetmore, Colorado 
1892 



45 



A FACE WITHIN A BONNET 

{Eleanor, age sixteen months) 

Across the yard it nodding goes — 
That little white sun bonnet, 

With buttons set in shining rows, 
And dainty lace upon it; 

Below its curtain, two small feet 
Come toddling forth to meet me; 

The bonnet's edge, and treble sweet 
Are both upraised to greet me; 

And as the fair stars from the skies 
Shine out through cloudlets rifted, 

So shine our wee Nell's gentian eyes, 
And rosebud mouth, uplifted. 

Laugh, O ye critics ! at my song, 
Its childish stanzas scorning; 

Tell me to doggerel they belong — 
I care not for your warning. 

A fairer theme bard could not grace 
With distich, rondel, sonnet; 

And so — God bless the rosy face 
Within its muslin bonnet! 

Fairbrook Ranch, Custer County 
il 



45 



MY GUEST 

Not long since, a sad-ej ed stranger came a-begging 

at my gate ; 
(I had never cared for beggars, it was but the gay 

and great 



I invited to my palace, and my garden rich and fair, 
Where but happy moths and birdlings, rarest fruits 
and flowers were ! ) 



When this woman begged permission in my shel- 
tered hall to stay, 

I made answer, "Nay, I know thee! Thou art 
Sorrow. Go thy way! 



"I have neither room nor welcome in my house for 

such as thou. 
Well I love my pleasant springtime ; I want naught 

of Sorrow now. 



"Get thee hence!" but Sorrow answered, "Nay, I 

must not thus depart!" 
Sat her down in all her tatters on the threshold of 

my heart! 



Breathed cold winds through all my palace where 

had only zephyrs been ; 
Hung its walls in gloom and shadow, where was 

only sunlight's sheen. 
47 



In my garden, hope's fair lilies, love's bright roses, 

no more grew ; 
These had died, and in their places bitter sloe, and 

mournful rue 

Grew apace; my gay companions loved my cheer- 
less home no more; 

All departed, none remaining save the beggar by 
the door ! 

Long I mocked her; long I spurned her; looked 

aside, and would not see 
Where she tarried on the doorstep, ever waiting 

patiently; 

Ever with a soft hand knocking at the unresponding 

wings 
Of the door that I kept bolted, guarding all my 

precious things 

From the least touch of her fingers ; from the plead- 
ing in her face . . . 

On a day, a flash of lightning, rose-hued, flooded 
all the place. 

Wrapping her in shining raiment — I beheld, with 

wakened eyes 
Sorrow's angelhood outshinirig through the beggar's 

piteous guise ! 

Then I cried, "O Sorrow! Sorrow! I will have 

thee! Come thou in! 
Thou shalt dwell with me forever; thou and I will 

be akin!" 

48 



Then rose Sorrow up before me, laid a gentle hand 

on mine ; 
Fair her visage grew, and tender, and her mournful 

eyes divine : 

"Child! but canst thou thus abandon all that has 

been dear to thee? 
Dream no more of fame and pleasure, be resigned 

to follow me? 

"Hard the pathway is; through deserts, darkness, 

hunger, cold and heat. 
Over stones and thorns my children ever toil with 

bleeding feet, 

"Eyes too tear-blind to discover where it leads, 

through pain and strife, 
To a purer air, and clearer; to a higher plane of 

life, 

"Where a calmer hope may flourish, and a truer 

bravery ; 
Faith and cheer more firm and steadfast; and a 

larger charity. 

"But not soon ! for thou must battle, toil and suffer 

through the years, 
Counting every mile with heart-beats; watering the 

sod with tears, 

"That perchance ascension lilies may spring up to 

light the road 
For the many who must follow in the footsteps thou 

hast trod. 

49 



"Thousands have passed o'er before thee; many 

fairest seeds have cast 
For thy sake; in such firm footsteps walk thyself, 

and so, at last 

"Thou, too, leave the shrouded valleys, where the 

mist her curtain drops; 
Climb above the crags and chasms, to the sun-bright 

mountain tops!" 

Sorrow is my friend ; I follow where she, going 

just before, 
Beckoneth; we walk together, she and I, forever 

more. 

Hard the pathway is, and harder must be, than I 

yet have trod ; 
But she whispereth: "It leadeth to the verv feet of 

God!" 

Custer County 
1886 



50 



FOR EDTTH 

(On a stormy day) 

All da.v has the snow been faUing, 

Solemn, dreary, and chill; 
And a dull wind, mournfully calling, 

Makes the world seem gloomier still. 

Ever deeper and deeper, 

The gray clouds cover the sky; 

And the overworked housekeeper 
Droops as the hours drag by; 

There is little of grace or pleasure, 

In the tasks she is set to do; 
Little even of leisure — 

She must toil the long day through. 

I can see, o'er the young face creeping. 
The shadows of weary pain ; 

The eyes are not far from weeping, 
Though the brave lips never complain 

Over the tired spirit 

Discouragement sore holds sway; 
Dear, shall I try to cheer it 

With a song for a gloomy day? 

Hourly doing one's duty 

Is better than happiness ; 
That is the highest beauty — 

Nobility — courage — success ! 
51 



Though the task be ever so lowly, 
We can make it a glorious one, 

The commonest work is holy 
When bravely, loyally done. 

So we may clothe with splendor 
The spot where our life-lines fall. 

So to the high God render 
The worthiest homage of all! 

And this YOU are doing, my darling, 
In your patient, toiling life. 

The storm around you is whirling. 
You journe^', calm in its strife, 

Dreaming never, nor drifting; 

Steadily making for right . . . 
See, love! The clouds are lifting; 

At eventide there is light! 



igo2 



52 



AT THE WINDOW 

The world has rolled its golden semi-circle, 
And entered the dominions of the night; 

I watch the azure ceiling slowly darkle; 
The planets grow more bright. 

Through utter desolation Earth is fleeting, 
Silent, alone, as one beneath a curse ; 

Under the sleepless eyes, the heart unquiet beating, 
Of the far Universe. 



My thoughts have followed after my desiring, 
And travel up, unpausing, to the sky ; 

Oh that my spirit could take wings untiring, 
And, like my thoughts, could fly 

Away, away, through all those star-sown meadows. 
That I might follow up the same bright road, 

Leading across the night, beyond the shadow^s. 
That my dear lost have trod ! 



For they are gone, but I must tarry, grieving; 

Mourning that I so long am left behind ; 
Striving and praying, yet but half believing. 

And less than half resigned. 



Those that were bound to me by ties the rarest, 
Of kinship, friendship, trust and loyalty, 

Those that have seemed to me earth's noblest, fairest, 
No more in life I see. 

53 



And I would barter many of the blisses 
That fate has given, or holds for me in store, 
To know again mj' father's tender kisses, 
His blessing as of yore. 

For one joy lost, I'd give so many another — 
Only to lean on one dear breast awhile: 

Only to whisper, once, the sweet word, "Mother"! 
To see once more her smile. 

How often, for some vanished presence yearning, 
One heart-cry murmurs through the weary day — 

"Ah! that on some fair eve, or joyous morning, 
My friend might come this way!" 

Gone are my best loved from their wonted places, 
Leaving me here in loneliness and pain ; 

Oh but to see once more their tender faces ! 
To clasp their hands again ! 

Father, forgive my blind complaining — rather 
Born of a sudden throe than quiet grief. 

Almost I yield my will to Thine — O Father! 
Help Thou mine unbelief! 

Help me to do the duty that lies nearest; 

Teach me to feel Thy way is always best. 
But lead, Oh, lead me soon where my lost, dearest. 

Have entered into rest! 

Use, Custer County 
il 



54 



SEA BORN 

Dainty shell, in my window lying, 
Far from the cave home of your birth, 

Are you not weary, weary, weary, 
Of mocking air and of stolid earth? 

The light wind dances in waves above you — 

Waves that are not of the sea, alas! 
Earth, with her iron will, constrains you, 

Captive to her, you may not pass 

Again to the life of ceaseless motion, 
Glory of color, and sheen, and glow ; 

And the tones of that great harp, deeply hidden, 
Whose music only the sea born know! 

I lift you, captive, with tender fingers; 

I bend my ear to your mystic folds, 
And hear, through their rose-hued spirals sighing, 

The same lament that my own heart holds! 

Lament for the spray's delicious odor; 

Lazy plashing of summer waves; 
Violet deeps under silver moonrise; 

Roar of breakers in rock-bound caves. 

Sea shell ! I am your fellow alien ; 

Fate lays a burden on you, on me ; 
To bear within us the deathless longing. 

For the breath, and the sight, and the voice of 
the sea ! 

Colorado Springs 
igi4 

55 



THE BUILDING OF A HOUSE 

Build thee a dwelling strong and fair; 

God will give thee the wherewithal; 
No man needs to be homeless here, 

Each may dwell in a stately hall. 

'Tis not a matter of wealth, or none; 

"Riches" are neither land nor gold. 
If any is friendless, poor, alone, 

The fault is chiefly his own, I hold. 

So build, straightway, a pleasant home, 
Sound and comely, within, without. 

Where all footsore and weary may come, 
Sure of a welcome, free from doubt. 

First of all, with the blessing of God, 
Choose thy site with a quiet mind. 

That very spot, from earth's acres broad 
Thy wandering feet this hour find ! 

(For this house of thine hath no fixed place; 

Thou shalt carry it with thee, everywhere; 
And all who gaze on thy tranquil face, , 

Shall have visions, too, of thy dwelling rare.) 

Build with firmness. The corner stones 

Wisely chosen and deeply set; 
Never a tempest with all its moans. 

All its lashings, could weaken yet, 

A castle founded as this, in sooth. 
Firm on the noble rock of Right, 
56 



Steadfast honor, faith, and truth; 

So thy house hath strength and might. 

And pray, have a seemly garden made 
Round about this dwelling of thine, 

With plots of flowers, and cedar's shade, 
And orchards, with olive, fig, and vine. 

The forefront entrance is wide and high, 
With a door that is always set ajar; 

Its pleasant name — hospitality; 

It is guiltless of either bolt or bar, 

Fearless of either want or thief — 

Over its lintel is carved a word, 
The key-note calm of thy whole belief — 

A shining inscription, "Trust the Lord." 

And opening to all the winds of Heaven, 

Make, I earnestly counsel thee — 
Looking to north star, dawn, noon, even, 

Windows of ideality; 

Windows through which that soul of thine 
May gaze upon all things pure and high. 

Windows through which warm home lights shine, 
Cheering the tired passerby. 

Set in the midst a winding stair; 

With marble steps of a stainless white, 
That lead to the upper chambers rare; 

Aspirations shall it be dight ! 

Line the walls with temperance cool ; 
The floors and ceilings, below, above, 
57 



Make of sincerity. Roof the whole, 
Crown and tower thy house with love ! 

The rooms must be many, with breadth and height, 

(industries, interests, sympathies). 
Studies, galleries, work-rooms bright. 

For sciences, cultures, charities. 

And pleasant, shaded refectories. 

Where thou breakest bread with the welcome 
guest ; 
And chambers, open to sun and breeze. 

Filled with the very essence of rest; 

And high above, where the white doves wheel, 

In towers free to the azure air. 
Chapels calm, where the soul may kneel 

At any hour, in trustful prayer. 

The whole shall be furnished in gracious wise ; 

All who enter shall rest at ease 
On chairs and couches of finest guise — 

(Thoughtful and kindly courtesies!) 

There shall be pictures and woven screens. 

Painted with fond remembrances 
Of noble deeds and of lovely scenes ; 

Pictured again for weary eyes; 

And many a stately cabinet. 

Richly carven, inlaid with gold 
Of gentle speech, and with jewels set 

From the deathless Wisdom and Song of old. 
58 



And well-stored presses beneath the eaves, 
Where goodly linens of fine thoughts lie, 

In delicate perfume from the leaves 
Of rich herbs, patience, and purity; 

Let such sweet herbs strew all thy floors. 

So shall thy house be dainty clean; 
And through the wide-flung windows and doors 

Breezes of hope and cheer sweep in. 

And I charge thee, set in the center of all, 

Near where thy stairs their white steps raise, 

In the midst of thy pillared entrance hall, 
A deep-toned organ of joy and praise! 

The fare should be simple, yet sweet in sooth ; 

Bread and Water of Life, both these ; 
Milk and honey, and salt of truth; 

Fruits of content, from thine orchard trees. 

One more touch — the last, the best, 
Freeing thy house from shade of sin ; 

Send forth greeting to one dear Guest, 
Bid Him of Nazareth enter in! 

Dost fear: "Too holy and high is He, 
My home unmeet for His stainless look?" 

Nay! He asks to abide with thee! 

"Behold! I stand at the door and knock!" 

Welcome Him in! Put fear away! 

Dwell in His presence in trustful ease. 
He shall change the house thou buildest to-day 

To a Palace whose name is "Perfect Peace!" 

Siloam, igo6 

59 



DISILLUSION 

Pandora, O Pandora! Deceiving gifts are thine! 
With gladness of Aurora, thine eyes smile into mine. 
I hear thy thrilling whisper, "These hours to thee 

belong; 
And thou shalt sing, ere Vesper, at last one perfect 

song!" 

The words, the themes, thou bringest I build with, 
joyously, 
And all the while thou singest of beauty that 
shall be. 

But when the song is finished, Lo! tears are in 

mine eyes; 
With hope and joy diminished I stand in grieved 

surprise. 
For me no high achievement! Alas! I only gain 
A fresh sense of bereavement, and failure's old, old 

pain. 

Colorado Springs 
March, IQ14 



60 



THE SINGER AND THE SONG 

God sends the songs, we poets do not make them ; 

All through the vibrant air they drift and float; 
We hear, and lean with eager hearts to take them, 

Not lightly, rapidly, but note by note; 

A line here, there, in faint, elusive rhythm; 

A flitting rhyme; perchance an image sweet; 
Only with pain we grasp the thoughts, and with 
them 

Mold form and grace to make the song complete. 

We are but wind-harps, mute iii^olian wires, 
Made voiceful by a power not our own; 

Over our frames the breath of God suspires; 
His are the rhythm, image, thought and tone; 

The beauty and the grace are all from heaven; 

Not born within the poet's brain or heart, 
The undertone of pain is all that's given 

By him, the instrument. That is his only part. 

And if the messages, instead of cheering, 

Sometimes depress you, sounding false or dull — 

That is the fault of our defective hearing; 
As God first sends them, each is beautiful. 

A flawless music, though it does not show it 
In our imperfect, faltering speech expressed; 

Judge not the song; judge gently your poor poet; 
Search for the Heaven-sent thought, and leave 
the rest! 

The "Sawmill," Greenwood, Colorado 
igo2 

6i 



GLADYS AT THE STILE 

{South Wales) 

From humble duties finelj' done, 
My darling steals, at evensong, 

Down where the two worn by-ways run 
The waving meadow grass among, 

And meet each other at the stile, 

There where my Glad3^s waiting stands. 

And, shading her brown eyes the while. 
Looks out across the pleasant lands. 

My girl! A stranger, passing down, 
And glancing at her, standing there, 

Dressed in her somber homespun gown, 
Perhaps would hardly think her fair; 

But unto me, and all who knew 

Her useful life, and dutiful, 
Her love so large, her faith so true. 

She could be naught but beautiful! 

The very flowers at her feet 

That lean to kiss her garment's hem. 

Are not less worldly or more sweet. 
Than she, who so delights in them. 

The dainty kerchief, folded o'er, 
And rivaling her bosom's snow, 

Is not less stained, or more pure 

Than the young heart that beats below! 
62 



How sweet and fresh her fair life seems 
In contrast with my own dark life! 

Grim with the pallid pit-lamp gleams, 

The gloom, the drill's and hammer's strife. 

Each daj' to this strange world apart, 
The thought of her descends with me; 

An amulet above my heart, 
It shields me from impurity. 

I strive in thought to paint her face 

On the black walls that frown around, 

But I can never limn its grace — 
Until the welcome tally sound 

Through the dim workshops here below, 

Calling us to the world above. 
And the glad hour when I can go 

Across the fields to meet my love — 

The slow day creeps! Without its gates 
My heart is fain to pass, and flee 

To greet her where I know she waits. 
My Gladys, at the stile for me ! 

Fairbrook Ranch 
1886 



63 



EVENING ON THE RANCH 

{Lullaby for Baby Florence) 

Come, my darling, for day is done; 

Voices of dreamland call thee, Sweet; 
Lean on my bosom, my fatherless one! 

Come to your rest, little weary feet. 
Trying to help through the long, long day. 

Tired, so tired is Mother's own girl; 
Mother's wee woman, who works for her play! 

Working and playing are over, my pearl; 
Sleep, my little one. Sleep. Sleep. 

Lonely and steep is the path we must tread, 

Oh little comrade in measureless loss! 
Soon, ah, too soon, on thy innocent head 

Has fallen the sorrowful shade of the cross. 
But thou knowest it not! Thy sweet eyes shine; 

Thy little feet patter, with gladness shod ; 
Never dreaming how weary are mine, 

Rest, my treasure; my gift of God. 

Sleep, my little one. Sleep. Sleep. 

Thou hearest never thy father's voice; 
Never thy kisses his deep kiss meet, 
My orphan baby! But still rejoice, 

He sees thee; he guards thee, from otherwhere, 
Sweet. 
He and thy mother but love thee the more; 

Folded in earthly and Heavenly love. 
With the tears and smiles of the daytime o'er; 
Slumber on in thy nest, my dove! 

Sleep, mv little one. Sleep. Sleep. 
64 



Droop, white lids, o'er the flovver-blue eyes, 

Lilies among the gentians sown! 
Restfully now on my shoulder lies 

The bright head, like to her father's own. 
My kisses rain on the dewy mouth, 

The loving fingers round mother's curled; 
Fanned by the tenderest breeze of the south. 

Sleep, my flower, my rose of the world ! 
Sleep, my little one. Sleep. Sleep. 

Colorado Springs 
19 1 5 



65 



WANING HOURS 

Fair on the snowy peaks the spent sun's fingers 

Trace the old lines of graceful imagery 
In rose and gold; day, tired, yet wistful, lingers, 

Strewing with daffodils the central sky. 
One eager planet, lamp in hand, advances 

Up the pale east, day's languid steps o'ertaking; 
Where are the dreams, the tender, graceful fancies, 

That used, of old, to choose this hour for waking? 
Lo! to the vestal hills, that kneel, adoring. 

The mighty Mother lends a parting ray; 
Granting t}ie7n loveliness, but not restoring 

To weary hearts, the grace of Yesterday ! 



Through the storm-riven gorge, the West wind 
rushes, 
Accompanying the cataract's monody; 
Shaking with viewless hands the spectral, dry-leaved 
bushes. 
Wildly he sings, but not of victory ! 
Stilled are the proud, brave hopes, high aspirations. 
With which youth answered, yesterday, his call- 
ing; 
Changing his battle cries to lamentations. 

He chords with heart-tones, like the waters, 
falling! 
They quiver still, responsive to his singing. 
But not, ah, not in 3'outh's ecstatic way; 
He comes with waking touch, but never bringing 
To grief-taught hearts, the hope of Yesterday! 



66 



Within, the ingle glows, but vain its graces; 

Sadly we lean beside the mocking blaze 
That shines no more on dear, familiar faces, 

Reflects no more the light of happier days. 
Where is youth's energy? It fails and falters. 

The need that called it forth no more returning; 
Though we build wider ingles, richer altars. 

Ever we see their flames more dimly burning; 
Lighted on alien hearths, they fade and dwindle, 

While the lone watcher vainly bids them stay — 
Where is the torch with pow-er to enkindle 

In lonely hearts the fires of Yesterday? 

/597 



67 



WAKING DREAMS 

{Dedicated to my sister) 

Sing? But what should I sing, and why? 

Is this a day to inspire a song? 

The weather is sorrowful-hearted as I, 

The sad wind grieves o'er remembered wrong; 

Gloomy, sullen, with never a break; 

The dun clouds hover below the sky; 

The feet are tired ; the hands are weak 

(Yet wholly vain is a hope of rest) ; 

The task is dreary and unrefined — 

Such futile work is a ceaseless round! 

The heart is sore and the soul depressed 

By lingering echoes of words unkind 

Spoken with plain intent to wound. 

How poor a thing is a Human mind 

Willing to wrest fair language thus 

From noble use to imagined need ! 

But thoughts like these cannot solace us. 

Come, dear heart! Let us sing indeed! 



We'll sing of a palace under the Sea, 
Built to music by Triton blown 
On rose-hued trumpets, rapturously; 
Our temple's beauty is Ocean's own. 
And never on earth was structure seen 
Bearing colors so many and bright; 
Gleams and flashes of gold and green ; 
Blue and silver; crimson and white; 
Daintiest amber, softest brown; 
The radiance the opal's eyes disclose; 
All delicate colors to mortals known. 
But chiefly the hue of the peerless rose. 
68 



Stately it stands In the heart of the deep, 

Far from the breakers clamorous; 

Its pillars of branching coral wrought; 

Its arching ceiling, mother-of-pearl; 

Its walls are of carven ivory ; 

Down from its cornice, arras sweep 

In many a graceful curve and curl, 

All with emblems of Ocean fraught, 

Lovely forms of the nautilus; 

Star fish and Sea-anemone. 

Its chairs are fashioned from fairest shells ; 

It is lit with a phosphorescent glow\ 

High in its turrets, melodious bells 

Swing with the water's rhythmic flow. 

Emerald waves by its casements glance ; 

And through the welcoming portals wide 

To and fro, in a mystic dance 

Happy daughters of Nereus glide. 

Ah, fortunate denizens of the Sea! 
Little they reck of wrong or care; 
Their home is founded in harmony; 
Evil and pain may not enter there. 

And w^e'll sing of a soft-eyed violet, 
That dwelt in a forest glade apart; 
Her dainty feet in the mosses set, 
A dewdrop glimmering at her heart. 
And near to her was a wood dove's nest. 
Where the tender mother softly cooed 
To fledgelings under her dear gray breast- 
No other sound was heard in the wood, 
But the silver voice of a little stream, 
And the graceful branches, sighing low. 
Shadowless as the trustful dream 
69 



Heaven-sent to a happy child 

Life dawned and passed in the sheltered wood, 

Unmolested and undefiled, 

Calm as the streamlet's crystal flow; 

For only the beautiful, true and good 

The hearts of flower and birdling know. 

And we'll sing of lilies, fair on a plain, 
A grass-grown prairie, wide and cool. 
Newly washed by a generous rain; 
And the lilies bend to a sapphire pool 
(Nestling soft on the meadow's breast, 
Throwing their dear smiles back to them) ; 
Then lift their starry gaze to the east 
Where the sky is crowned with a diadem. 
The symbol set from Eternity. 
Lo, all treasures that thought may name, 
All things dearest and loveliest — 
Beryl, jacinth, chalcedony; 
The fuchsia's bell and the tulip's flame; 
The garden rose and the sweet wild briar, 
Shade of the forest; sheen of the sea. 
The glowing heart of the Spirit of fire — 
All Earth's colors have flown to the sky. 
And tremble there in a lustrous wreath; 
Jewels and flowers set on high, 
And the white of the lilies underneath! 



A gladder note in the wind's low voice — 

Gold and azure glancing above — 

Look, dear heart, through the brightening pane; 

Earth and weather again rejoice! 

Valiant hope and condoning love 

And loyal courage are ours again. 

Colorado Springs Nov., IQIS 
70 



SERENADE 

Sleep and rest. The moonbeams holy 
Fold thee in their tender light; 

Breath of roses; night winds lowly; 

Radiant stars — all breathe "Goodnight!' 

Sweetly sleep — all care and sorrow 
Banished from thy quiet breast. 

Safely sleep until to-morrow, 

Wrapped in deep and perfect rest! 

Sleep ! And may the dawn-light, coming, 
For thee gladness only bring; 

To thy heart, like wood-birds homing. 
Peace and hope are taking wing! 

Sleep! May softest airs caress thee! 

Be thy dreaming calm and bright. 
Loving angels guard and bless thee — 

Dear one! Best beloved! Goodnight! 

At the Sawmill 
igo2 



71 



A CHANGELING 

If I had been a musician born — 
If the Giver of gifts had awarded me 
That richest crown that was ever worn, 
The matchless dower of minstrelsy — 
I would have played on a clarinet, 
Wrought of silver and ivory. 
The fairest instrument fashioned yet — 
And my glad hearers should seem to see. 
Seem to hear, to smell, to taste. 
All the loveliest, lightest things 
Sights, sounds, odors, flavors that are 
Dainty, illusive, ethereal, chaste — 
Rhythmic flutter of gossamer wings; 
Breath of lilacs — the gleam of a star — 
The panting opal's electric blue, 
With green and golden undershot ; 
The second rainbow's airiest hue — 
Essence fine of the apricot — 
The gray fawn's footfalls over the moss; 
Glance of the streamlet's shining feet; 
Light-winged foam the cataracts toss — 
Prismed bubbles, and rain drops fleet; 
Roll of the wheels of Oberon's car; 
Lilting notes of a dawn-waked bird ; 
Cloud-built temples that gleam afar. 
With jeweled tower and minaret; 
All of these should be dreamed or heard 
In the magic tones of my clarinet ! 

For I was born in a fairy dell. 
On a famous island over the sea. 
The bluebell lifted her sweet blue bell, 
And tinkled tiniest chimes for me; 
72 



And the Undine river, that danced away 

At the foot of our cowsh'p broidered lawn, 

Flung me greetings of silver spray 

As it sped to the calling sea — and dawn. 

The rays of the twin stars earthward stole 

And lingered around us lovingly; 

The scent of hawthorn flooded the whole, 

And far to the west, in a primrose sky, 

The moon, a delicate crescent, swung — 

A lily petal, adrift on high ; 

And over her bright tip, Venus hung, 

For a child of evening and spring was I ! 



And Oh! that Fairy mother of mine. 
How deep was the light in her pansy eyes ! 
It shone through her lashes, long and fine. 
Like fresh rain caught in a graceful urn. 
Reflecting the sheen of evening skies. 
She cradled me there in moss and fern. 
And sang me Avonderful lullabies. 



She laid on my head her Fairy hand, 
Imparting her own dear dreams to me ; 
She touched my eyes with a magic wand, 
And taught me happiest sights to see — 
A subtle beauty o'er all earth's face; 
A deeper meaning in wave and cloud ; 
Radiant colors, and forms of grace. 
Where dreariness seemed to weave a shroud. 
She bent her lips to my ear — I heard 
The mystic voices of leaf and stone; 
The friendly gossip of beast and bird; 
And music for Fairy ears alone! 
73 



Bright were the scenes she showed to me ! 

South, on the banks of that river fleet, 

We looked on a daisy-sprinkled lea 

Where Prosper walked with his daughter sweet; 

And up from a dismal, haunted glade, 

In bitterest service bound awhile, 

The young Prince toiled, to be well repaid 

By the dawning love in Miranda's smile! 

Here Ceres came, in her golden gown. 

With grapes and wheat in her arm's sweet bend; 

And there little Fanchon, berry brown. 

Danced with Shadow, her only friend. 

The King's Highway ran here, o'er the grass; 

On breezy morns we could see approach 

The train of the Marquis of Carrabas; 

Fair Queen Mab, in her gilded coach ; 

Camels laden with burdens gay — 

Spicy bales from the Orient brought; 

Knightes and Ladyes in brave arraye. 

With Arthur riding to Camelot. 

East, where a noon-lit glimpse of the sea. 
Flashed two emerald hills between. 
Bright sails passed us continually — 
The gorgeous barge of the Nile's dark Queen; 
The shallop that bore St. Brandan forth ; 
Galleys with gems from Baalbec; 
Olaf's Serpent ship of the North, 
With fierce-eyed Vikings upon her deck. 
Graceful xebecs from Southern shores. 
With swarthy sailors, and cargoes fine; 
A proud Bucentaur, with gleaming oars; 
The blazing masts of the Palatine; 
And another woeful ship of mark — 
Whose fate the Ancient Mariner tells. 
74 



Often a pious Mission Barque; 

Three most notable Caravels — 

(Surely the goodliest craft afloat!) 

With dauntless prows to the Westward set; 

And a certain blessed, loved little boat. 

That kneiu the ivaves of Gennesaret. 

West and Northward, excluding day, 
Brooded the forest, thousand-aisled, 
And there, in the lilies, white as they, 
Bonnie Kilmenny, wi' een sae mild 
Knelt, in the gloaming we heard her sing, 
And a pleasant mingling of forest sounds — 
Audrey and Touchstone, quarreling; 
Deep-mouthed baying of Heme's good hounds; 
The voice of the little Indian Lad, 
Asking Nokomis of sights and signs; 
The saintly tones of Sir Galahad, 
Lifted in lonely woodland shrines. 
The twanging crossbow of Robin Hood ; 
The laugh of the fur-clad Robber Girl; 
Or we walked far into the haunted wood 
With Hester Prynne and her Little Pearl, 
For we knew of a magic wishing well. 
Whose sparkling drops, used Fairy wise. 
Laid on the w^'tch-child a brighter spell. 
And coaxed the shadows from Hester's eyes. 

And we knew of a cavern, dim and old, 
Hidden under the whispering leaves, 
Heaped with jewels and silks and gold — 
Never hid by the Forty Thieves ! 
Its rainbow treasures were all our own, 
And we needed to guard them, lock nor key, 
For never ajar those doors were thrown, 
75 



Except for our "Open, Sesame!" 
And often, under the moonlight's sheen, 
Decked in robes from our secret hoard. 
We danced with Oberon and his queen, 
On Fairy rings on the velvet sward. 



Oft we passed from the forest cool, 

And saw, as we leaned the stream beside. 

Dimpling up from the shadowy pool. 

The smile of Sir Huldbrand's lovely bride. 

Naiads grouped on a pearly stair; 

Rhine-maids guarding the treasure old ; 

Lorelei, singing a pensive air 

As her gold locks slid through her comb of gold ; 

But seaward borne was a chorus fine — 

Music truer, more sweet than hers, 

Rich with the odors of larch and pine — 

The songs of Canadian Voyageurs. 

Or we heard the dip of advancing oars. 

And a great boat drifted into view. 

With weary exiles from far-off shores, 

And, gentlest of all that gentle crew, 

One who farther than all had strayed, 

And then on our spirits a sadness fell, 

For we knew her, the dear Acadian maid, 

Vainly searching for Gabriel ! 



So was the magic circle set. 
The ocean, forest, river and lea 
Shutting us into a world of our own, 
Green and purple and fair to see ; 
Sweet with the may and the violet, 
Vocal with voices of bird and bee, 
76 



And many a fleeting, vagrant tone — 
Exquisite elfin melody, 

From Ariel's lute-strings downward blown — 
Such was the world of my infancy ! 

But oncej ivhen the winds were all at rest. 
And over us glimmered the moonlight pale, 
I heard, as I leaned on ?ny mother s breast. 
The thrilling voice of the nightingale. 
"Mother!" I cried, "what tones are those? 
Why is my heart by that music tornf" 
"Child, she sings to the heart of a rose. 
But her own is pierced by its poignant thorn!' 

And once, as the light came over the ivorld. 

Waking out of a dream of bliss, 

I heard great harp-chords, solemnly hurled 

Down on glittering surfaces. 

"Mother!" I cried, "Oh, whose that tone? 

Why does it thrill my pulses so?" 

"The Ocean's, child! In the dawn alone, 

He chants the story of Man's long woe!" 

But dearer to me than all of these, 
Were the songs my own sweet mother sang. 
Walking under the listening trees. 
Bravely, clearly her accents rang; 
She sang of beauty in many lands. 
Of patient waiting and valiant deeds; 
Of good works fashioned by faithful hands; 
Of loyal hope, and of gentle creeds. 
And last, when gathering clouds drew nigh, 
And jocund robins had nestward flown; 
While gold and azure paled in the sky — 
She sang a song that was all my own. 
77 



"Be true, my child, to the simple name 
With its Fairy sign, that I bade thee wear; 
Give no heed to the tongues that claim 
That life is other than high and fair. 
Follow Beauty, although, be sure 
Thou'lt walk on a pathway lone and wild ; 
But where thou seest her torch-gleams pure. 
Follow, follow, my Changeling child ! 
Folloiu onward, unfaltering. 
For Beauty and Good, my dear, are one. 
Harken, follow, and thou shalt sing 
A perfect song e'er thy day is done!" 

And then, with a bright glance backward thrown. 

With that, and her dainty finger-tip 

(Filbert shapen, and pink to see). 

Archly laid on her aching lip. 

She left me there in the wood alone — 

And passed forever away from me! 

She faded into the silver mist. 

Under the branches' trembling green. 

And her loved Vale-lilies leaned and kissed 

The hem of her mantle's dove-gray sheen. 

She passed. In her place was tender pain; 
The wondering sigh of a wistful breeze; 
The bright mist turned to a grieving rain ; 
And I ran from under our sheltering trees — 
Away o'er the hills, the lonely plain; 
Away, awa)^, to the edge of the Sea; 

Mother of mine! How far, how in vain 
I've sought for the Perfect Song and thee! 

For I was not a musician born, 

1 only pipe on a broken reed — 

(For I never could find that silver horn!) 
78 



Broken music, that none will heed. 

Only a Changeling singer I; 

Less than human, not wholly fay, 

I shrink from the wise world's urgent cry, 

Its grasping work, and its garish play; 

The clang of its coin ! I hate the thing 

Humanity counts as worth alone, 

Yet I lack the Fairy power to sing 

The loveliness I have looked upon. 

I have walked apart, by choice or chance, 

And all things lonely and wild and free. 

Have greeted me in one fleeting glance. 

That seemed to whisper, "Akin are we!" 

I've lifted my hands in glad acclaim 
To all things lovely, and pure, and high ; 
I've looked away from the greed and shame, 
To the light of the stars; the bow in the sky: 
To love, to follow the Vision rare, 
To sing it for others, is all my creed; 
I have seen it, but Oh! I cannot share — 
For I only pipe on a broken reed! 

Yet the gentle heart and delicate ear. 
Listening kindly and trusting well. 
Under my vagrant songs shall hear 
A faint, faint sound of the wave's far wail; 
And the plash of the ruby blood that fell 
From the wounded breast of the nightingale. 

Colorado Springs 
J915 



79 



SONGS OF THE TRAIL 



"WHEN MY SHIP COMES IN" 

O FRIENDS of mine! With me be gay, 
For now my better years begin! 

Across the happy waves to-day 
At last my ship comes sailing in! 



My bonny barque ! How long ago 
I sped her forth upon the main. 

How often, some good news to know, 
I questioned sailormen in vain ! 



How often, in the wakeful dark, 

I heard the storm, and thought, with grief, 

"Ah, doubtless wrecked is my sweet barque, 
This bitter night, on some wild reef! 

"If still afloat, where points her wheel?" 
I thought, "Ah, whither does she trend? 

How battered now her sea-worn keel; 
How soon — and sad — must be her end!" 



But lo, I was not answered thus; 

More fair than when she sailed away, 
With crew and cargo prosperous 

My ship comes into port to-day. 

O Fisher- Folk — and Land-Folk, too! 

With dear craft on the tossing brine; 
May all of yours come home to you. 

As happily as this of mine! 
83 



() guiding winds, and O bright stars! 

Such good and trusty friends are ye! 
With rosy sails and gleaming spars 

My long-lost ship comes back to me! 

Colorado Springs 
Thanksgiving Day, IQIS 



84 



SONGS IN MARCH 

O SOUTH-EAST winds, down trampling death, 
That hastening come from Capricorn, 

With faint salt odors in your breath, 
From wild Atlantic caverns borne — 

(Ye brave, strong breezes, bearing good. 
Repairing Winter's gloom and blight; 

And quickening all the languid blood; 
And turning labor to delight;) 

O wet white clouds, that in bright chains 
Go driving up the sparkling blue. 

With hints of fertilizing rains, 
And promises of helpful dew; 

O free wild birds on rapid wing 

Your only mission to foretell 
The gladness of the coming spring — 

That do your one small duty well; 

O springing blade and flower cup. 

Ye lowly nurselings of the sod, 
Who lift your tender faces up 

And offer one mute hymn to God; 

Ye chorus all one message true — 

''Death's type, dark Winter, is subdued ; 

Rejoice! The world is made anew! 
Oh, life is glad, and God is good!" 

Rocky Mead Ranch 
1885 

85 



OLD JIM OF THE RANCH 

On the breezy upland meadow, 

Where the eagles, over him. 
Wheel and scream, through storm and shadow, 

There he's lying — poor old Jim! 

Loyal friend! Is this your ending — 

To lie, graveless and unwept, 
Wrapped in mist-shrouds, swift descending. 

By fierce mountain winds down swept? 

But you need no burial honors! 

Little matters it to you — 
That the clouds are your sole mourners; 

And your dirges, sounded through 

All the wild and lonely passes. 

Are bird screams and storm-wind moans — 
Since you've found, among the grasses, 

Space to rest your weary bones! 

Jim, you were not born to pleasure; 

You were but a lowly steed; 
Not a lady's pride and treasure, 

Built for dainty grace and speed; 

And much less a gallant charger 
Thirsting for the battle strife — 

You fulfilled a mission larger 
In far other walks of life! 

You were never famed for beauty, 
Breeding, sprightliness nor vim; 
86 



But you did your homely duty 
Well and faithfully, old Jim! 

Year by year, in wind and weather, 
You and your old patient mate 

Trod the dreary roads together, 
Never warring with your fate! 

Year by year you turned the furrow, 
Or in cheerless stables stood; 

Bearing work, and cold, and sorrow, 
In the same submissive mood. 

Yet — you had your pleasant hours; 

Dozings in the aspen's shade ; 
Croppings, after summer showers, 

Of the juicy gramma blade; 

Sometimes, even, days of leisure, 
When from plow and wagon free, 

You gave gleams of wildest pleasure 
(Somewhat sulkily) to me! 

With what glad anticipations 
I stood by, a thoughtless child. 

Watching saddling operations, 
Heedless of reproaches mild 

In your soft eyes, and your ire, 
Nay, I laughed to see you flinch 

And to hear your groanings dire 
At the tightening of the cinch! 
87 



Then we started — at an amble, 
(Lazy Jim! your favorite gait) 

We began the uphill scramble, 
You, reproachful, I, elate. 

But you did away with creeping. 
When we reached the breezy moor; 

Then you felt the rich blood leaping 
Of some high-bred ancestor! 

Like a lightning current, flashing 
Through your poor old tired veins, 

You sprang forward, headlong dashing, 
While I simply clutched the reins. 

Oh, those gallops, wild, unshrinking. 
With the fresh breeze in one's face! 

Then to my exultant thinking, 

You lacked neither speed nor grace. 

Up your head went, quite forgetting 
Sordid bridle, cruel check — 

Wide 3'ou flung your mane out, fretting 
At its soft touch on your neck; 

And your large eyes lost the dulness, 
Sowed in them by toil and pain ; 

All youth's light and fire and fulness 
Glowed in their brown depths again! 

Quick and sure, your good hoofs ringing, 
Struck the sparks from flint and shoe; 

Startled mule-deer, groveward springing, 
Hardlv seemed more fleet than vou ! 
88 



How the brown earth shrank before us! 

Stretched and streamed away behind! 
And the dark pines joined the chorus 

Shouted by the racing wind ! 

I forgot my limitations ; 

Strength and pride, a sense of power, 
Bounding hope, bright aspirations, 

Glorified the flying hour! 

I and you were then not merely 

Dreamy child and toil-worn horse — 

We were heroes, victors, clearly 
Destined for a splendid course. 

So we galloped, unadmonished. 

Till the sun, upon our right, 
Dropped behind the cliffs, astonished, 

And the glum hawks whooped "Goodnight!" 

When the stars were blinking palely, 

Down, exulting, we would come. 
Then you stepped out lightly, gaily, 

Thinking of the oats at home! 

Jim, I hear by divination 

Critic's laughter, scornful, long, 
When they learn the inspiration 

Of this effort at a song. 

Let them laugh, my scorntrs clever, 

I will pay the debt I owe 
To your memory; forever 

I shall treasure it; I know 
89 



Recollections closer cherished, 

Through my whole life will be few, 

Than the dear ones of the perished 
Golden hours I spent with you; 

Rich with childhood's hope and gladness, 

Sweet with ignorance of strife, 
Censure, failure, coming sadness. 

Jim, beyond this toiling life 

There, mayhap, are pleasant meadows 
Where cool waters always brim; 

Where there come not storms and shadows- 
May YOU find such pastures, Jim! 

Southern Colorado 
1891 



90 



SEPTEMBER 

The robin, the wide mesas over, 
Is calling her lover. 
Beckoning on while she's flying 
Where summerland's lying. 

The gay blackbirds noisily follow, 
Down in the hollow 
They loiter, half laughing, half grieving. 
For the land they are leaving. 

To the south, too, but sadder than they, 
September winds stray. 
Mourning dead summer, and sighing 
O'er a hope that is dying; 

A sweet hope of rest, that they cherished. 
Ere summer had perished ; 
They must on, now, their journey pursuing; 
That hope not renewing. 



O winds that may rest not, I, too, 
Am homeless, like you ! 
Through the gray solitudes yonder, 
Still must I wander! 



birds flying summerward, nestward! 
Eastward and westward, 

1 stray, too, but nowhere I see 
A roof tree for me! 

91 



Friend of the wanderer! Hear 

My passionate prayer, 

I beseech you — that soon through the gloaming 

I, too, may be homing! 

The way has been long, and so dreary; 

I am so weary! 

I would that the path, for my sad feet intended, 

To-night might be ended. 

Few be these autumns for me! 

Oh, may I see 

Soon through the gloom, all the solitudes past 

Home lights at last! 

Whitehorn 
1S99 



92 



MOUNTAIN FLAX 



Children of wayward June, who, when the loving 
sun 
Lays his light fingers gently on your hair, 
Open your large blue eyes, lit with a sweet surprise, 
And smiling round in gladness, call the world 
most fair. 



Not by the bounding stream, where the cool pebbles 
gleam ; 
Not in the fragrant woods have you your dwell- 
ing place; 
But on the uplands gray, or by the dusty way. 
Bright-faced you stand, in your unconscious grace. 

Little life gives to you ; not with the royal few 
Were you decreed to rank by Destiny; 

Bearing the toiler's yoke, you, among flower folk. 
Are the strong, cheery, patient Yeomanry. 

Green lawn and garden plot never have been your 
lot, 

Only rough sod and country ways you know ; 
Painter and bard, 'tis true, little have heeded you ; 

Unsung, unnoticed, almost unknown you grow; 

Dears, do you know there are flowers more state- 
ly far 
Who each in song or story has her place? 
Not born, like you, for use, their being's sole excuse 
Is their own gracious loveliness and grace. 
93 



Yet, O you rustic sweet ! Not one is more complete, 
Although of prouder lineage and birth ; 

Into YOUR lives was wrought God's sweetest after- 
thought. 
Before 5^our advent, there was a want on earth ; 

He, looking down one daj^ over the bright array, 
Reached His creating hand out tenderly, 

Straightway the whole world grew fairer because 
of YOU — 
"Blessed are ye among the flowers!" said He. 

For in your natal hour. He, to the gifts of power 
And varied usefulness already given. 

Added your dainty face; all your ethereal grace; 
Your perfume rich, and coloring of Heaven. 

Bloom on, in sweet content! Smile on, too innocent 
And lowly to have any need for tears. 

Look up confidingly; under that whole wide sky 
'Tis sure there are no holier worshipers! 

Whitehorn, Colorado 
i8p9 



94 



STORM SONG IN AUGUST 

A BLUSTERING wind ; a dash of rain ! 
A pause, then gust and drops again — 

Heigho! a change of weather! 
With laughter from the west and north 
A genial wind comes hurrying forth, 
And charges, with large scorn of fear, 
On stagnant smoke and sultry air. 

And drives them south together! 
The cloud-fays come from north and west, 
A-dragging many a fleecy vest 
Across the hot sky's fainting breast; 
And purple mist and silver rain 
Come blowing, pelting down a-main; 

(Heigho! Such glorious weather!) 
The lightning splits the shuddering sky; 
The thunder's hoofs are trampling by — 
Oh, Robin lad! That you and I 

Were out in it together! 



All weather's fair when you and I 

Are out in it together. 
But best of all's a stormy sky, 
With thunder's horses prancing by; 
And red lights flashing from on high ; 

(Heigho! Such glorious weather!) 
And mist and rain, and you and I 
Apart from all the weary world. 
Feel new hope through our young veins hurled 

In a new earth together! 
A fresh, green earth, and wholly ours, 
Walled round with breezy mists and showers; 
95 



And nought \Aithin it stale nor sad, 
For we have love and j'outh, my lad! 

And this is youth's own weather! 
We're 5'oung! Our hearts and feet are light; 
We'll laugh at storms, and cheerly fight 

Adversity together! 

Pueblo 
1899 



96 



LITTLE BOY BLUE AGAIN 

Little Boy Blue, come blow on your horn! 

Wind it, sweetly and cheerily ; 
The cows are a-stray in the tasseled corn — 

Herd them out, quickly and merrily. 

Graceful and strong in the summer sun, 

Noddeth the stately corn ; 
The red cows wind through it, one by one, 

Boy Blue, come blow on your horn ! 

Gentle and meek are the soft-eyed cows, 
Sedately they tread the green alleys ; 

But they must not here on our harvest browse; 
They must off to the pasture valleys. 

All through the corn field they low and call, 
And their cries with the sheep's are blended ; 

Where's the wee herder to mind them all? 
Bov Blue! Your flocks are untended! 



The meadow-lark's note rings sweetly and clear; 

The robins are calling to you; 
The birds and the cows and the sheep are here; 

But where is little Bov Blue? 



The busy wrens twitter, "Boy Blue! Boy Blue!" 
The blackbirds are holding sweet riot ; 

All little pipers are noisy but you — 
You, that should never be quiet! 
97 



Down in the meadows the marigolds wave; 

And the gay little lambs are a-leaping; 
But the little brown herder, bonny and brave, 

Under the haystack is sleeping. 

Low in the shadow his curly head lies, 
With his round dimpled arm for a pillow. 

Slumber has hidden his mischievous eyes; 
Tired so soon, little fellow? 

Boy Blue, you are missing the glad summer morn 
For sleep that is sweet but in seeming! 

Who now will wind us the clear ringing horn. 
And waken Boy Blue from his dreaming? 



98 



IN THE GLOAMING 

Last night, returning with dangling bridle, 

Through sunset burning and daylight paling, 
And golden weather, in humor idle 

I rode, inhaling the fragrant ether; 
The world was laden with summer's glory 

And evening's gladness, and seeming painted 
With hues of Aidenn; to tell its beauty 

In song or story (unchecked, untainted 
By thought of sadness), my heart was bidden — 

Most pleasant duty! — The sun, far hidden. 
Had long been dreaming on azure pillows; 

But heavenward filing in waving billows 
Bright clouds were streaming, and his sweet smiling 

Still seemed to linger in those cloud fountains; 
With rosy finger his rays caressing 

The somber mountains; in purple dressing 
The pine-kings olden; the fields arraying 

In light green-golden! My horse, obeying 
My whisper eager, willingly halted ; 

I waited, listening; in the blue, vaulted 
Expanse of heaven majestic Vega 

Was faintly glistening. The winds of even 
In anguish seeming, about me sorrowed. 

Low-voiced, and teeming with sweetness borrowed 
From rustic bowers, all built of flowers 

In woods and green dells. Across the meadows, 
Now veiled in shadows, the silvery cowbells 

Were softly chiming, and with them rhyming. 
The brooklet wandered, and idly squandered 

Its time in singing; while, from the thicket 
In accents ringing, piped, never weary. 

That minstrel cheery, Great-heart, the cricket! 

99 



Fair is the dawning, when day is breaking; 

Bright is the morning when life is waking, 
When leaves are springing, and birds are singing. 

Earth's joyous playtime! Sweet is the daytime 
When bees are roaming, and flowers are dreaming; 

Dearest the gloaming when dews are falling, 
And winds are calling, and stars are gleaming! 

Fairbrook Ranch, Greemvoodj Colorado 
1883 



100 



EASTERTIDE 

Over the greening hills 
Comes Eastertide; 

Earth's inmost being thrills; 
Gladly she casts aside 

From her reviving breast 
Trappings of gloom; 

Lo ! where our loved ones rest 
Pasque flowers bloom ! 

Upward the bluebirds dart 
Through the bright air; 
Now shall the stricken heart 
Rouse from despair. 

When bee and birdling soar 
On rapturous wing, 

The grief-hushed soul once more 
Shall strive to sing, 

Break from woe's bondage free 
And putting by its pain, 
Like the anemone 

Shall Godward reach again ! 

'At the Sawrnill" 
April, I go 2 



lOI 



UNDER THE PINES 

Oh, that I had the magic power to render 
Into melodious and sweet rhyming lines 

The songs prophetic, solemn, joyous, tender, 
Sung to me by the pines! 

Moaned in long dirges down wild mountain passes; 

Chorused at sunrise on the rose-crowned hills; 
Murmured in lullabies above the grasses; 

Heard over dancing rills. 

Heart-songs and home-songs, through green branches 
sighing. 

All the long, golden summer afternoon; 
Child-songs, and elf-songs, flitting, glancing, flying, 

Till evening comes, too soon! 

Passionate legends on the uplands lonely. 
Hidden away from all life's cheerful signs; 

Where the enfolding hush is broken only, 
By whispers of the pines! 

Triumphant war-cries, songs of proud endeavor, 
Shouted by warriors upon the height; 

Sighs of the valley nuns that mourn forever, 
Breathed to the tender night. 

But under all their sighing — thankful vesper, 
Rapturous matin o'er Spring's greening sod. 

Or Winter's monody, I hear them whisper, 
"Lift up the heart to God !" 

102 



O ni)' beloved pines ! your tuneful voices 

Chord with whatever note Fate strikes for me ; 

When at hope's welcome touch, heart's harp re- 
joices, 
When swept by misery. 

You've doubled gladness; sighed above my sorrows; 

You've whispered, in the dark hour's storm and 
stress, 
Brave prophecies of happier to-morrows; 

You've shared my loneliness. 

The music of your boughs has been, through child- 
hood, 
Through wayward youth, through toiling life, 
to me 
Dearer than all dear voices of the wildwood, 
All human minstrelsy; 

When, in the evening of my life, before me. 
The sweet, familiar light no longer shines, 

Among soft tones that breathe "Addio" o'er me. 
Be yours, beloved pines! 



103 



A REQUIEM 

There is summer in the land; 

From the canon's dim recess, 
Down the amber reaches near, 

Purple shadows, hand in hand, 
Softly steal and closer press. 

All the world is very fair. 
But 'tis filled with loneliness. 

For it lacks your presence, dear ! 

The quiet evening falls ; 

On the harebell shines the dew ; 
From some hidden forest spot 

Float the wood dove's plaintive calls ; 
She is singing, dear, of you ! 

In a voice with sorrow fraught 
She repeats your name anew, 

But in vain. You answer not! 

A pensive beauty lies 

On the wooded slopes, the plain, 
But the old, glad light of yore 

Fades and fails. Our wistful eyes 
Seem to find a shadowing pain 

Where was only joy before. 
Earth's delights are all in vain — 

You behold them, dear, no more! 



104 



EXILED 

As a bird Hies to its nest 
In the purple firs apart, 
Flies m}' spirit, and takes refuge 
In the love of thy great heart. 



As the cloud enfolds the hill 
In a calm and pure caress, 
So I feel myself enfolded 
In thy love and tenderness. 



r>ike the v\est wind, carrying 
Dreamy memories of the sea. 
Through the desert waste between us 
Thv remembrance wings to me. 



We are parted, O dear heart! 
Not a look or tone of thine, 
Not a gentle touch can answer 
Any yearning pra.ver of mine ! 

Will it ever come again — 
All the joy we knew of yore? 
Ah, a prophet voice within me 
Moans an answer, "Never more!" 

But in visions bright and brief, 
Dreams the tender angels send. 
Once again I feel thy presence, 
Knov>- thy smile again, my friend! 
105 



I can feel, in noon's deep hush, 
Through night's holy mystery; 
Through the fury of the hail storm, 
Thy heart's love beat out to me. 

O dear heart! O tender heart! 
Life is full of misery; 
But death only can be welcome 
If I lose my love for thee ! 



io6 



IN GOD'S ACRE 

{My brother, Charles Gibbs, 
February, 1873 — May, i8gi) 

I KNEEL by your grave, with the sunbeams stealing 
To the cross that is wet with my yearning tears; 

The lines of your dear, dear name revealing, 
And the number small of your brief, sad years. 

A soft wind passes. The sunrise splendor 

Is mounting over the eastern hills ; 
Down in the canon, calm and tender, 

The deep low voice of the river thrills, 

I should prize this hour — a sweet and rare one. 
To the Silent City, where now you dwell, 

I can seldom come, and again, my dear one ! 
I am here to bid you a long farewell. 

Westward again, through rock-strewn spaces, 
To scenes less homelike, and far less dear, 

Into the wild and lonely places. 

Again I must journey, and leave you here! 

Dear, though I miss you, ah, how sorely, 
I am glad, to-day, that I go alone; 

The sunlight enfolds you, softly, purely; 
Your sad wanderings all are done. 

Rest, dear heart, by the crooning river; 

O patient heart that endured so much! 
Your grief and toiling are past forever; 

Safe from all sorrow, from care's least touch, 
107 



I leave you here in the sunlight sleeping, 

Under the grasses and quiet sky; 
The sentinel hills their true watch keeping, 

And the river singing your lullaby. 

I cherish, as comfort the deepest and fairest, 
The thought of your long release from pain. 

And my hope is to clasp you, O truest and dearest! 
Some morn in the golden Hereafter — again! 

Canon City 
1899 



108 



CHILDREN'S LAND 

Guide me with your shining eyes, 

Children dear! 
To that radiant world that lies 
Outside this one's boundaries, 

Far from here! 
Here are clouds and drifted snows; 
Your dear native country knows 

Skies more fair! 
Through its happy greenwood blows 

Purer air, 
Freighted with all sweet perfume; 
For the hawthorn and the rose — 
And each scented flower that grows, 
In the Childland meadows bloom 

All the year ! 

Bind me with your gentle hands, 

Children dear! 
Lead me captive to those lands. 
Fairy woodlands, wave-kissed sands. 

Far from here! 
Here are sadness and unrest; 
In your land are all things blest, 

Pure and rare, 
(Like you, darlings!) There alone 

Doubt and fear, 
Hate and greed, were never sown ; 
On life's sunny morning strands 
Only love and trust are known; 
And your Heavenly Father stands 

Always near! 

May, ipoj 

109 



LATE AFTERNOON 

Down the bright lane we saunter, Guss and I — 

Guss the brown collie, best of cow-dogs he! 
With plumy tail a-wag, and head held high, 

And soft ejes dreaming reminiscently 
Of that last trip across the Mosca Pass 

He and his master and bay Nelly took. 
The camp they made in knee-deep meadow grass, 

Besides a most refreshing mountain brook; 
The fishing there was good; the hunting, not; 

— Quick shadows come and go now in his eye — 
"That rascal rabbit I so nearly got . . . 

And will sure get, the next time that I try!" 
Aha! the dreaming eyes again grow bright. 

Our Guss remembers, and once more is gaj' — 
The coyote he chased off the ranch last night! 

The saucy squirrel that he treed to-day! 

I, too, am glad; who could be otherwise. 

In this fair valley, guarded round about 
With crystal peaks that pierce such blue, blue skies. 

And shut all jangling sounds of traffic out? 
The robins start their lilting evening call; 

The waning sun long, graceful shadows wields; 
The air is cool, and very sweet withal, 

Breathed over blossoming alfalfa fields. 
And there are strips of emerald marsh-land near. 

Where all dear meadow blossoms toss and blow; 
And just beyond the cotton-woods, we hear 
The happy murmur of the Huerfano.* 

San Isabel Forest Reserve 
19 1 5 
* Huerfano, pronounced Whdu-iAn-o. 
110 



GUSS OF THE SERVICE 

Guss is a dog of ample dignity, 

Of conscious worth, unshaken rectitude. 
Let other Shepherds frisk; Guss knows that he 

Must not forget himself; grow careless, rude; 
He's in the Service! An important beast, 

And all his w^ork is with importance fraught ; 
His name is on the pay-roll — or at least, 

It ought to be, whether it is or not! 

Guss never questions, but gives all his care 

To neatly rounding sheep and cattle up ; 
Nipping a heedless laggard here and there — 

But — leaping? barking like an untrained pup? 
Prancing? Or sneaking like a wretched cat? 

Running the cattle when he is not sent? 
Do you imagine Guss would act like that ? 

Not he, indeed. He serves the Government! 

And loves it; so, with each returning sun. 

He superintends the raising of the flag; 
Showing he likes a fine thing nicely done, 

By his grave smile, and approbative wag. 
If he mounts guard o'er Baby Marian, 

Pacing beside her cab with stately tread. 
His air conveys: "I do the best I can; 

Never of me, at least, shall it be said — 

'That dog has never even earned his salt!' 
I mean to earn my kennel and my bone ; 

If I don't get them, that is some one's fault — 
I don't know whose — it shall not be my own!" 
I T I 



Willing to let all other honors slip, 

He only asks the sweetest he has known, 
A friendly pat; a glance of comradeship, 

Flashed brightly from loved faces, to his own. 
At such a time, Guss ceases to look bored — 

He knows a pleasant truth is stated well, 
When the young Ranger says, in tones assured, 

"There's the best dog in all San Isabel!" 

Ranger s Station, San Isabel Reserve 
19 1 5 



112 



THE WIND 

An unseen presence, ever at our side; 

To each of us, the soul's mj-sterious twin. 
No man could find a solitude so wide 

That he might freedom from that presence win! 

Sometimes a freakish comrade, blithe and young; 

Again, an awful power, remote and stern. 
A luring singer in an unknown tongue, 

A warning seer, whose meaning none may learn ! 

Singing responsive to our inmost thought; 

Soothing with gentlest touch the fevered brow; 
Wrecking, with mighty fingers, ruthlessly, 

What man, with infinite pain and toil, hath 
wrought — 
Spirit inscrutable! Oh, what art thou? 

Malign? Benefic? Friend or enemy? 

Colorado Springs 
19 1 4 



"3 



WILL O' THE WISP 

Will o' the Wisp, a-shine o'er the grasses, 
Down where the meadow brook steals away. 

Over the tussocks and drear morasses, 
Forever I follow your witching ray. 

Will o' the Wisp in the starlight gleaming, 

Are you indeed but a tricksy elf? 
Say! is your loveliness all in seeming? 

Would I might touch you, and know for myself ! 

In the lonely night, through the ghostly hollow, 

Over the marshes, wide and wan, 
The phantom glow of your lamp I follow ; 

Flitting before me, you beckon me on. 

Will, you have cheated me, oft and sadly. 

Seeming to shine in my very face; 
I reach my fingers to clasp j^ou gladly; 

They close on nothing but empty space! 

And farther on — just a little farther. 
Your taunting glimmer again I see; 

I follow and reach for it, only to gather 
Another handful of mockery. 

Elusive Will ! Shall I reach you never ? 

Is all my hungering search in vain? 
Must I go wandering on forever, 

Empty-handed except for pain? 
114 



Will o' the Wisp, there are those about me, 
Who cry that I point to a light untrue; 

When I'm most earnest, they scorn and doubt me; 
Pity my quest, and laugh at you ! 

Will o' the Wisp, though j^ou be unreal, 
I'll follow you on, till at last I fall; 

Better to cherish a mock ideal. 

Than never to care for a light at all! 

W hitehorn 
1899 



FLAX FLOWERS 

Oh, the flax! 

Straj' little angels, poised for flying, 
Robed in bits of the sky's own blue, 
Snatched as they fluttered its portals through, 
With bits of the sky in their sweet eyes lying, 
Slender, swaying, daintiest flax! 

Innocent flax! 

Each, like a staid little Quakeress, 
Tip-toe reaching, modest and shy, 
Timidly greeting the passerby, 
Unguessing her "own dear loveliness," 
Pure-eyed, delicate, darling flax. 

Halcyon flax! 

Gay little pixies, a-dance in the sun ; 
Peeping from under the grasses' cover, 
Nodding, courtesying, brimming over 
With elfin laughter, delicate fun ; 
Airy, fairy, ethereal flax! 

Loyal flax! 

Faithfully doing its whole small duty; 
Bright little acolytes, gently swinging 
Golden-blue censers, and rare gifts bringing — 
Usefulness, gracefulness, perfume and beauty; 
Wind-waked, dew-kissed, exquisite flax! 



ii6 



HYMN OF THE CONQUERED 

Night on the battlefield. Hushed, lonel}' night! 

(The music died at sunset on the hills, 

Infernal music! Scream of shot and shell; 

High notes of fife and bugle; human shouts; 

The cannon's diapason; and below 

All other sounds, one low, heart-breaking sound — 

The moaning of the wounded!) 

Now, the hush, 
The loneliness! only the earth and sky; 
Dark, silent earth that rolls on ceaselessl> ; 
Pale, silent sky that bends immovable — 
Oh, earth and sky unpitying! So far, 
So passionless, so heedless of our pain! 

Beyond the trenches, on the trampled sod, 
There lie the heaps of fallen, friend and foe; 
For them is utter rest. For us, the night, 
Cold, hunger, weariness; the dreary round 
Of sentry duty, and, with to-morrow's light. 
Renewal of the battle! 

Yes, at dawn 
We rush again into the blinding smoke. 
Hopeless of victory. Yet any strife 
Were better than this silent pacing here, 
Companioned only by heart-weary thoughts — 
Sad knowledge of to-morrow's sure defeat. 
Grief for the bitter loss of j-esterday. 

We fight a losing battle, for the foe 
Outnumbers us, and holds all vantage ground. 
Yet, while the strife continues, passion nerves 
The arm to strife, the heart to wildly beat; 
If hope fails, desperation leads us on. 
117 



But spirits dark or bright have failed us now; 
The need for action ended with the day, 
And hope and fortitude fled with the light. 
War is less terrible than this suspense 
Of lonely waiting. How the silence weighs! 
The strained ear aches with longing for a voice ; 
Hotly the eyelids throb that dare not sleep! 
Slowly the blood drips from untended wounds: 
Can limbs so weary ever rest again? 

Out on the plain they lie, the happy dead! 
For them is blessed silence, rest and peace. 

Rest! Rest and peace! Do they, then, wake no 

more? 
Is it all ended, efifort, stress, defeat? 
Achievement, failure, hope's fond whispers, tears? 
Pain's guerdon; love's sweet bitter cup; the last 
Great gift our storm-torn hearts can offer up — 
Renunciation? 

Death ends all of this — 
The glory of the conflict ! Life ! Ah, Life ! 
Sweet, cruel, poignant, beauteous life! 

At last! 
The dawn! The mounting light above the hills 
Suddenly smirched and fouled with hideous smoke; 
The deep hush broken by a sullen roar. 
The foeman's guns! but ringing clear and true 
The bugle flings its answer. Near at hand 
Another music, low and grave and sweet, 
Our captain's steady accents, 

"Forward, men! 
Follow the Colors!" And, ah, see! There! There! 
Flung to the breeze, saluting golden Heaven, 
The white, the blue, the crimson of the Flag! 
ii8 



Forth to battle, Comrades! No retreat! 
What if the foe outnumbers, five to one, 
Our feeble forces? Though the blind crowd points 
And sneers "Defeat," answer with firmer strokes. 
Rush on the sword's point. Pour the life blood out. 
No whining cry for quarter. More than all 
No furling of the Colors! When we fall 
Let it be round the standard. Let us know 
The sacred fabric floats above us yet, 
Assailed and torn, but never trailed in dust! 
Our bodies rather! 

What if we perish thus 
Trampled to earth, untended, unacclaimed, 
Unwept, perchance? So be it! All is well. 
To have had courage, patience, loyalty' — 
To cherish honor, follow duty still — 
These things, and these alone, are Victory! 

Colorado Springs 
October, 1913 



119 



ON THE SUMMITS 

My Colorado! Thy imperial brow 

Is lifted Godward, heedless of its crown 
Of matchless loveliness. Serene, intent 

Only on worship, never looking down. 
On the bright apex of the Continent 

Through silent rolling ages kneelest thou! 
Beautiful, lonely, grandly unavi'are 

Of all that is ignoble, false, unclean; 
Of discord, petty standards, selfish care, 

In State, in Church, in Home! Awaiting thee 
Is a great future ; then, O my loved Queen ! 

May thy calm beauty teach thy sons to see 
One truth, too long ignored — the Eternal needs 

No arched cathedrals, no trained ministry, 
Nor futile ritual ! Only by stainless deeds 

Of honor, can men praise Him worthily! 

Colorado Springs 
19 1 4 



120 



ENCHANTMENT 

When I inhale your breath, you lovely fern; 

The formal, ordered world I daily see 
Vanishes, and a dell that I have known 

(Shut in by willows, cool, with glooms and 
damps, 
Fresh, pure, with ferny odors like your own! 

With vagrant sun-gleams, here and there, for 
lamps) 
Appears, and with the sweet credulity 

Of my glad childhood, I again discern 
The rainbow hues of tiniest waterfalls. 

Behind whose waving gauzes, hand in hand. 
Dance, to the streamlet's tinkling madrigals. 

Lithe, leaf-clad denizens of fairyland ! 
On russet moss nearby the feast is spread 

( Sweets from the honeysuckle's darling bell ; 
The buttercup's rich offerings set around ; 

Carved acorn goblets, filled with hydromel ; 
On a white rose leaf, one ripe strawberry!) 

While, from the aspen's trembling, gold-green 
shade 
A large-eyed hamadryad, violet-crowned. 

And silver-robed, smiles at us lovingly! 

Colorado Springs 
19 1 4 



121 



OUTDOOR SONG 

The wind and the pines and the stars! 
These I have claimed and held as mine — 
Mine by a life-long, passionate love; 
Mine by the bond of kinship — mine! 

The wind and the pines and the stars! 

The wind and the pines and the stars! 
The June wind, carelessly roaming by; 
Touching his harp-strings now and then; 
The fall wind, mourning a perished hope; 
The March wind, singing of joy to be; 

The wind and the pines and the stars! 

The pines and the stars and the wind ! 
The pines that dwell on the red hill-side, 
Rocking the song bird's babes asleep ; 
Leaning to shade the anemone; 
Tossing gay arms to the racing clouds; 

The pines and the stars and the wind! 

The stars and the wind and the pines ! 
The stars, the soldiery of the sky; 
Scouts of the lonely Universe; 
Treading each his appointed way, 
Calm and steadfast, and unafraid; 

The stars and the wind and the pines! 
I 
Colorado Springs 
19 1 4 



122 



MORNING IN COLORADO SPRINGS 

The brooding wing of night, how swiftly gone ! 
A new-made world as suddenly revealed! 

A quiet world, unvexed by haste and stress; 
Naught stirring save a little light-winged breeze. 
Singing in careless, happy undertone 

The while its gentle-fingered hands caress 
The budding branches of the maple trees. 
Toward the East, beyond the emerald field 

(Dew-washed, and breathing health and purity) 
The sun, a ruby on a shimmering dress; 
A fire of roses, kindled wantonly; 

Or Phoebus, lifting up a burnished shield. 
To greet the earth, his loyal votaress. 
Westward the peaks, all harsher lines disguised 

And softened by their draperies of mist, 
Priest-kings, world-old, lift breasts and foreheads up 
In voiceless praise. And now, Oh, hark! Oh, hark! 
The beauty of the morning vocalized! 

The passion of its joy and tenderness, 
Its fire and dew, its gold and amethyst. 
Changed into song, poured in one loving cup — 

The sunrise offering of the meadow lark! 

Colorado Springs 
1914 



123 



ON THE HIGHWAY 

Had we but sooner met, how fair were life! 

Long years ago your lot was cast near mine; 
In the old southern town our youthful feet 

Approached and passed, in days when joy was rife; 
It was as if some influence malign 

Had led us past each other on the street, 
Through all that year of young-eyed, hopeful 
strife — 

Ah, Love! Why was it that we did not meet? 

Into a byway path, that promised years 

Of dear content, home peace, you turned, to pass 
From youth's high dreams and hopes — ah, bitter 
fate ! — 

To unthanked toil, to misery that sears 
The generous heart and brain. And now, alas! 

Midway the opening and the closing gate, 
Taught by defeat, attainment, prayers, tears, 

In life's rich prime at last we meet — too late! 

Oh, had life other been ! Yet so, we might 

Have missed its higher meaning; been denied 
The glory of this anguish. . . . Go! Pass on, 

Brave heart, true heart, into your starless night. 
Dark, dark the night, but after cometh dawn. 

We two shall meet again, and side by side 
Lift tearless eyes amid the growing light 

Of other life, beyond the Great Divide. 

But now . . . but now ... at Honor's call, we 
part; 
One word, Good-by. No other words; no kiss. 
124 



Only the anguislied speech eye speaks to eye; 

O slowly loosening hands ! O breaking heart ! 
O feet that came, unknowing up to this, 

Hope-shod, anticipating joy most high, 
That now must turn, and walk henceforth apart — 

Good-by till death. Good-by, Beloved. Good-by. 



125 



MIDWINTER 

The year's first bitter hours are here again; 
Here, too, the heart's unanswered prayer for peace! 
On storm-tossed boughs last year's stark leaves re- 
main — 
Bond slaves to grief, we all, denied release. 
O futile longings! O unsleeping pain! 
O wild wind ! Cease ! Cease ! 

Patience, desponding heart! Hush thy deep moan; 

Bear on with courage yet a little while ; 

To the storm's rage oppose brave music — sing! 

Many beatitudes are still thine own; 

Many small comforts thy long watch beguile. 

Soon, soon shall Easter larger beauty bring; 

Joy's harbingers, the song-birds, soar again; 

Shall not the skies and waters once more smile? 

And though unquenched desires, old grief remain 

Hope shall re-blossom with returning Spring! 

Colorado Springs 
Jan., 19 1 5 



126 



COLORADO PHILOSOPHY 

Up life's rocky trail I've come pretty far; 
— Swirl of mist and hail; shine of sun and star — 
I've come through all sorts of weather, and my last 
conclusions arc 

That the storms are few lasting all day long; 

Sunset lights break through though the clouds 

are strong; 
Some hearts take fair weather with them, as they 

go along, 

Life without its care would be incomplete; 

Joy is somewhat rare, but 'tis far more sweet 
Than we fickle folk would find it, if we got much 
more of it! 

In my ramblings wide, I've seen, since the start, 

Almost every side of the human heart ; 
Good and bad commingled, but the bad is not the 
greater part, 

Human nature's poor, but, in the long run, 
I believe there's more good than evil done; 
Acts of kindness, versus meanness, number three 
to one. 

I admit Life's sad, but I still maintain 

There is much that's glad mingled with the pain ; 
Much we lose, but all our losses are offset by gain. 

Mid our varied haps, let us, therefore, pray 

Not for softer naps nor for higher pay, 
But for steady hearts to meet all that comes our 
way. 

igoi 

127 



SONGS OF OTHER PLACES 



"NATURALIZED CITIZENS" 

{fVritten after hearing Alfred Noyes read hh 
poems) 

O LOVELY Isle of England, sweet land beyond the 

Sea, 
Accept, with worthier offerings, an exile's thought 

of thee! 



Not much of England of To-day is given me to 
know ; 

The white cliffs faded from my view such long, long 
years ago ! 

How many miles I've trod since then ; how many 
maxims learned — 

A small and mournful wisdom, too hardly, slowly 
earned ; 

To-night I could forget it all — whole-heartedly 
rejoice, 

Swayed by the magic music of a ringing English 
voice ; 

I saw no more the Western wilds, but through the 
poet's eyes 

I looked again on hedge-rowed fields, and "dappled 
English skies." 

The lark was carolling on high — the cuckoo call- 
ing clear. 

And long-hushed tones in childhood heard fell on 
my gladdened ear; 

The scent of woodland violets, and briar and cow- 
slips gay, 

131 



Of lilac and laburnum, and the sweet, sweet English 

may 
Came drifting on the happy wind — to-night I dared 

to be 
A child again in England, the Home Land o'er the 

Sea! 

A child again — and summertide through all the 

smiling land! 
I felt again the living touch of my dear father's 

hand ; 
He led me by cool waters, where we saw the swans 

asleep ; 
And up the grassy hillsides, where the castle ruins 

keep 
Brave witness to the story he taught me then to 

know — 
The tale of England's glory, her toils, her wars, her 

woe! 
We stood beside the harbor, while the waves came 

racing in — 
The merry, merry whitecaps, and we heard the 

cheery din 
Of the lusty, chesty west wind, as he whistled at 

his ease. 
And brought the wave-washed brigantines and 

sloops from overseas; 
The masts were like a forest, when November 

strips it bare, 
And pennants, gaily fluttering, from all the lands 

were there, 
But at the sight of one bright flag — O noble white 

and red 
Crossed on its field of bonny blue! — my father 

bared his head; 

132 



With kindling eyes, he snatched his cap, and threw 

his young head back, 
And bade me toss my baby hand to greet the Union 

Jack! 

O England ! Mother England ! Though far afield 

they've strayed. 
Feet that have known j^our pavements once, among 

your daisies played, 
Have danced upon the happy sands, with your blue 

wavelets wet, 
And wandered down your hawthorn lanes — can 

never quite forget! 
You'd be the last to blame us that we look, with 

reverent eyes 
Upon the fair, unconquered flag, that guards our 

liberties; 
You'd be the first to counsel that we love and 

honor thus 
The youthful, the great-hearted Land that shares 

her bread with us; 
That accepts our alien homage, and our mistakes 

condones. 
Bestows her own bright honored name upon our 

little ones; 
But the loyalty we give her would be never half 

so true 
If we could banish from our breasts all love and 

thought of you ! 

In your dark hour, now, O Mother! how we yearn 

to you again ! 
How silently, ah, silently our hearts bleed with your 

pain. 

133 



Would our adopted country blame the tears in 

secret shed 
For graves of Marne and Charleroi where sleep 

your gallant dead? 
The prayers in secret uttered for your gallant living 

bands 
That battle on the Dardanelles, and on the Persian 

sands? 
(Our prayers may scarcely ease their pain, and 

though like rain they fall. 
Our teardrops cannot cool their thirst.) But 

more, ah, more than all 
We weep for hearts that break to-day beneath the 

"dappled" skies; 
And the blue-eyed English children — Oh, those glad, 



unguessmg eyes 



The day is dark about you now — you walk a blood- 
drenched path; 

Your skies are lighted only with the glare of wreck 
and wrath, 

But the God whom you have reverenced shall lead 
your armies vast 

As on your thousand battle fields He led them in 
the past! 

And He shall guide j^our outbound fleets, and guard 
your sacred shores; 

And bless the harvests of your fields, the flocks upon 
your moors. 

He sped your flag in every zone when your good 
ships went forth 

To brave the calms of tropic seas, the wild un- 
charted north. 

And plant your sturdy colonies, yet hostile keels 
He spurned — 

134 



Who whelmed the proud Armada, when on you 

her guns were turned ? 
He nerved your arm at Agincourt, Trafalga, 

Waterloo. 

His breath sustained the tattered silk that ever 
dauntless flew 

O'er the shot-torn roofs of Lucknow, o'er Lady- 
smith's red streets, 

O'er Magdala, Sebastapol — how quick the red 
blood beats 

At the tale of England's glory, so finely, calmly 
worn, 

At the tale of England's sorrows, so long and bravely 
borne ! 

Ah, is it to be wondered at, that with hot scorn 
we flame 

When little yelping voices seek to smirch that shin- 
ing name? 

O noble little Island ! Up a righteous way you've 

come! 
Defender of the helpless, strong warder of the 

home ; 
Whose deep-laid sense of justice has made your 

generous breast 
The refuge of the hunted, the hope of the op- 
pressed. 
You were the first to shield the Jew, the first to 

free the slave ; 
Your soil was Freedom's cradle and Despotism's 

grave. 
And you have scorned all subterfuge, and cherished 

truth and right; 
Through all the darkling centuries you've kept the 

torch alight. 

135 



Land most revered! Sweet Mother Land! Thine 

exiled children, we 
From this our well-loved New World home, send 

greetings o'er the Sea ; 
The hearts that once have throbbed with thine, 

can never quite forget — 
O England ! England ! England ! Jehovah guard 

thee yet! 

Colorado Springs 
Dec. 2nd, igiS 



136 



LONGING 

Into the Fairyland regions — 

Over the viewless line, 
Parting this world from a dearer, 

Float, little barque of mine! 

Glide out into the moonlight; 

Glide on, under the stars ; 
Out where the silver breakers 

Dash over coral bars. 



Dash, with a sound of music. 

Into the calm lagoon. 
That lies like a turquoise, gleaming, 

Under the silver moon. 



Float, little barque, on your voyage, 

Into those waters still; 
Follow the graceful shore-line 

Of palm-set valley and hill ; 



So over dreaming ripples 
Under night's tender smile, 

Float to the end of your voyage 
The harbor of Poet's Isle! 



Oh, fair in the Fairy moonlight 
Lieth that isle of song; 

For a single bar of whose music 
Vainly I listen and long! 
137 



Murmur of sea and streamlet; 

Carol of flame-winged birds ; 
Delicate songs of its zephyrs; 

Gracious, melodious words 

Breathed bj^ the spirits immortal 
That people its favored strand — 

The leal, and loving, and tender 
Dwellers of Poet's Land ! 

Whose lives are all set to music, 
To music they move their feet; 

They labor, those Islanders happy, 
To poesy's rhythmic beat. 

Numberless strains of music 

Through all their utterance run ; 

Ah, from their rich abundance 
Will they not spare me one? 

Freighted with all my longing, 
Glide, little boat, to their mart; 

Speed in your trading, and carry 
A song to my yearning heart! 



138 



ALLEGIANCE 

Thy face in visions haunts me ; 

Albeit long unseen, 
The faithful dream-god paints me 

Thy well-remembered mien. 

O face! strong, yet most tender; 

O noble eyes and sweet ! 
My sovereign ; my defender ! 

My liege compassionate! 

If, as pain-fraught years bow me, 
My prayers for thee I cease. 

Forgetting what I owe thee, 
May all my woes increase ! 

Though I shall ne'er recapture 
The joy I knew long since — 

Shall know no more the rapture 
Of serving thee, my prince — 

Life cannot be all grieving 

Till I learn to forget; 
And Death's worst pangs were leaving 

A world that holds thee yet! 



Rocky Mead Ranch 
i8gi 



139 



VIA DOLOROSA 

I SING not for the care-free, I have never 
Walked in the paths of ease ; I only know 

Life's bleak and stony highway, where forever 
The footsteps of the poor and toiling go; 

Therefore I do not sing the songs of pleasure — 
(How should I speak of that I never knew?) 

Light feet and young, dancing in joyous measure, 
I have no merry tunes to pipe for you! 

But to the desolate — the weary-hearted, 

You who have left behind the glow of spring — 

You from whose lives the glory has departed — 
'Tis for your cheering that I long to sing. 

Search for the fairest aspect of your sorrows; 

There is some beauty in the roughest wa} s ; 
Steadily hope for happier to-morrows; 

Bury the sadness of your yesterdays. 

Follow what you believe to be the real; 

That which was given you as truth to see ; 
Cling — through all adverse glooms — to your ideal; 

Cherish it sacredly, whate'er it be. 

And you, adown the way of sorrows going. 
Shall come at last to offer thanks and praise — 

For pain itself! Think not I speak unknowing; 
My feet know, all too well, those stony ways! 
140 



There are few bitter cups I have not tasted ; 

Few lonely deserts that I have not crossed ; 
But I have learned this — love is never wasted; 

The good of noble effort never lost. 

Sorrow, if rightly followed, leads us upward ever, 
And makes life richer, dearer, more divine; 

Hope never really dies, and God is never 
Deaf to the moan of sorrow, toil or sin. 

Altman 
igoo 



141 



NORSE LOVE SONG OF FAREWELL 

Blue is the summer sea 

Past th}^ keel gliding, 
Bearing thee far from me 

Lonely abiding 
Under these stormy skies, 

Gray mountains yonder ; 
Past my close boundaries 

Yearning to wander! 

Softly the morning ray 

Steals to thy pillow; 
Gladly begins thy day, 

On the free billow; 
Gleams from the summer skies 

Thy sails irradiate, 
Clear as thy sunny eyes 

But more compassionate! 

Cold is that heart of thine, 

Carelessly beating; 
Heeding no pain of mine; 

Glad to be fleeting. 
Over the dancing foam, 

Willing to leave me 
Pent in my dreary home — 

Yet I forgive thee! 

True as those stars that shine 

Golden above thee, 
This bereft heart of mine 

Always shall love thee! 
142 



Till death, in very rutli, 

M}^ bonds shall sever, 
To thee I plight my troth, 

Loving thee ever; 
Choosing, because of thee, 

Fortunes all lonely; 
Loving thee steadfastly; 

Loving thee only! 



H3 



NORSE LOVE SONG OF LONGING 

The chill of despair o'er mj^ spirit is stealing, 
As Autumn's chill steals down the breath of the 
gale ; 
In the fast-dying year, on the lone headland kneel- 
ing, 
How long and how vainly I've watched for thy 
sail! 

Oh, hear'st thou not, dear one! my voice that be- 
seeches ? 
Send, send me some token or word o'er the sea! 
Return, Oh, return ! from those summer-lit beaches, 
To the heart in the wild North, that's breaking 
for thee! 

How long must I pine here, my sad vigil keeping, 
Uncheered by one love-word, one love-touch of 
thine? 
Art thou living indeed, or beneath the wave sleep- 
ing? 
Oh ! living or dead, love, bequeath me a sign ! 

If / were afloat on the wide gleaming ocean, 
And thou waiting here at the edge of the sea, 

No lure of the tropics could blunt my devotion ; 
Not death and his terrors could hold me from 
thee! 

Glen Lodge, Greenwood 
1903 



144 



"AS UNTO OTHERS" 

Lord of Love ! O Savior holy ! 

At Thy feet one prayer I lay. 
Make my inmost heart more lowly; 

Take my soothing pride away. 
Give me truer balance when 

I weigh myself with other men ! 

Give me keener eyes to see 
Faults that are a part of me. 

Give me dimmer eyesight when 
I scan the faults of other men. 

Make these two hands feeble. Lord, 
If they seek to grasp and hoard. 

Make them strong and skilful when 
They're reached in help to other men 

Give me feet that slower move. 

In ways that feed mine own self-love. 

Give me feet that hasten when 
They minister to other men. 

Give me fortitude to bear 

All the griefs that are my share. 

Give me tears and softness when 
I'm told the woes of other men. 

Give me quicker sense to note 
All the blessings of my lot. 

Hush all envious murmurs when 
I mark the joys of other men. 
145 



Lord of Love! Awarder true! 

Help me to remember then, 
That I nothing have to do, 

With Thy gifts to other men. 

That Thou hast not set me here. 
With my narrovr human ken, 

To be judge or punisher 
Of the sins of other men. 

May Thy chiefest gift to me 
Be more love for them and Thee ! 



146 



BESIDE THE EASEL 

{Aunt Eunice's jnemories of 1776^ told to Helen 
in 1838) 

Nell, did you notice a little song 
Alice was singing last evening, dear? 

I used to know it when I was young, 
But had not heard it for many a year. 

Ethel and Constance, standing by, 

Laughed at the simple, old-fashioned thing; 

But all in a magical moment, I 

Was back again in my halcyon spring! 

Back in my girlhood's hours sweet, 

Whose glamour and glory thrill me yet 

Down the dim parlor, light young feet 
Moved in a graceful minuet. 

Courtly gallants, with lace and queues. 

Shaven faces, and powdered hair; 
Dainty maidens, in high-heeled shoes, 

And scanty, beruffled gowns, were there; 

The grand piano's stately roll 

Changed to the harpsichord's tinkling tone; 
And up from the terrace a perfume stole. 

Of roses that faded, summers agone! 

For that old song of my life was a part 

In the time when I only carolled and played; 

And when I heard it, I saw upstart 

Ghosts of the past I believed were laid. 
147 



The thought of an evening long ago, 

Returned, with its mingling of joy and pain; 

Some one was whistling, softly and low 
That tune while sauntering down the lane ; 

And I was waiting — of course you smile! 

"A hero of '76!" you say: 
No! Just a laddie I knew for awhile 

When my heart was young, and the world was 

gay. 

Only a laddie who lived long ago, 

Who was not anything wise nor great, 

One of the boy friends I used to know. 
Quarrel and laugh with, picnic and skate; 

To-night, for a wonder, my laughter failed ; 

I had stolen away to gaze at the sea, 
Across which to-morrow the good Sprite sailed, 

Carrying Charlie away from me. 

Of course I was sorry! As girl and boy 

We'd sought each other in dame-school years ; 

We'd shared with each other our every joy, 
And mingled our April sighs and tears. 

And still, though many a gallant I'd met, 
I liked him better than all the rest; 

Perhaps I was even then a coquette. 

For I would sooner have died than confessed! 

Well, I was leaning over the gate, 

As he came whistling down to me ; 
And when he saw me, standing in wait, 

He paused, too, under the hawthorn tree. 
148 



It was all a-bloom, and he plucked a spray, 
And held it, laughing, over my head; 

And then, in his own bright, winsome way — 
"I'll return when it blooms again," he said. 

So we parted, and Charlie went over the sea. 
The merry sea! And the fair winds blew! 

The very waves seemed to dance in glee, 
As over their bosoms the good ship flew. 

So, utterly out of my vision passed — 

That long dead morning, sunny and fair; 

The Sprite's gay pennon, and last tall mast — 
She went in search of her cargo rare, 

Darnasks, brocades, and sandal wood. 

Richest spices of Araby, 
Shawls from Cashmere, delicate hued. 

Attar of roses, and ivory. 

Plelped by the soft winds, on she bore; 

By many a headland's frowning crest, 
And many a shining coral shore. 

And into the strange old world of the East! 



Over the sea, in Boston Town, 

I danced and flirted, a gay coquette; 

Perhaps I w^as dancing a heart-ache down — 
'Tis long ago, Nellie, and I forget! 

Dear heart! how we reveled in these old rooms! 

And woke in the garden echoings clear. 
And flitted like butterflies all through the blooms. 

What giddy — and happy — young things we were ! 
149 



Priscilla, Diana, and Dorothy; 

Dear names, long unfamiliar now; 
And I was the queen of our coterie, 

The Governor's daughter, Eunice Howe, 

High born and beautiful, Helen, sweet, 

Don't wonder at Auntie's vanity; 
I number, without a trace of conceit. 

The triumphs my girlhood brought to me; 

What matters it, now in my fading age. 

That once I was courted by high and low? 

Can it matter, either, my little sage, 
That here I quietly tell you so? 

Courted! What tales have been whispered and 
heard 

By gallants and maids in this very house! 
We listened demurely to every word. 

And laughed, sub rosa, at all their vows. 

And conquered them still with our glances and curls. 

Dear, don't think us unkind, untrue; 
We were a bevy of thoughtless girls, 

Much like Ethel, and Connie, and you! 

You lift from your easel your grave, sweet eyes; 

To you, our revels seem almost crimes. 
When heavy with war-clouds were all our skies. 

And rife with the whispers of troubled times. 

You think that pleasure and love and mirth, 
Should all be quenched in the patriot's flame? 
150 



Ah, child, through the darkest ages of earth, 
Youth carols, hope blossoms, love dreams the 
same! 

We each had some bitter cup to drink, 

And were not indifferent to strife and war; 

On the whole, we were innocent, dear, I think, 
Aj^, and warm-hearted, as you girls are. 

Yes, I was beautiful, flattered and wooed; 

Many a suitor bowed the knee, 
Some of them handsome, clever and good. 

Seeking a gracious word from me. 

But I was wilful, as well as fair. 

Smiles and favors I gave each one ; 
But all my graciousness ended there — 

Loving words I would give to none: 

For gay as my young heart was, and light, 
'Twas over the sea with Charlie, I know. 

I'd never forgotten our parting night, 
Although we'd never exchanged a vow; 

Only (I did not tell you this 

Before), he bent his head to my own, 

To leave on my cheek one quick, warm kiss. 

And murmur, "Think of me, when I'm gone!" 

I did not speak, but my fingers lay 
One long moment imprisoned in his; 

Of course I ought to have snatched them away, 
As more becoming a Boston Miss! 
151 



I left them, enraptured, nor wondered when, 
No further word in the hush was said ; 

Charlie told me as plainly then 
His love, as ever another did! 



When a year had vanished, the Sprite came home 
By fairy islands and golden strands; 

And Home was sweet with the hawthorn bloom, 
But Charlie had tarried in foreign lands; 



Or rather, had gone to the country that lies 
Out of the reach of all sorrow and care; 

Beyond the seas and beyond the skies. 

Where the hawthorn blooms through the whole 
sweet year. 

Only a strife and confusion of men, 
And the needed action quietly done ; 

Only an epitaph's praises, and then 
A grave forgotten by all save one! 



How happened it? Just as the Sprite neared port 

At Aden, an enemy's man o' war 
Fired, and just as our gun's retort 

Had waked the echoes along the shore — 



The Sprite's brave-hearted captain fell, 
Dying without a word, and command 

(To have given it to a child were as well) 
Passed into the most inadequate hand 
152 



Of tlie next in authority — Cliarlie was third — 
And their officer's indecision and fear 

Turned a gallant crew to a frantic herd, 
And panic seemed to be reigning there; 

But when a young voice, steady and clear, 
Shouted an order, they sprang to obey; 

And spurred to zeal by the courage and cheer 
Of their self-made captain, they won the day. 

Ah, but Charlie had broken through 

All rules, and defied all discipline! 
But he never waited to hear his due, 

Of praise, nor the blaming voices' din. 

He leaned, sore wounded, against the mast, 

Bleeding, dying, but clear of eye. 
And a voice that never shook to the last — • 

My boy-love died as the heroes die! 

Thanks for those kisses, my tender Nell; 

Sweet, may you never be forced to go 
With dancing footsteps, and smiles wreathed well, 

And a spirit that's silently wailing below I 

As I went, while the sword sank into my heart, 
And gave of my anguish no outward signs. 

Dearie, if that's an heroic part. 

We're most of us heroes and heroines ! 

For as, where we furrow the breast of earth. 

Sweet flowers and sheaves from the wounds are 
born, 
So, few are the human blossoms of mirth. 
But shadow the furrows by agony torn. 
153 



'Twas a fearful ordeal ! I tlilnk, my worst. 

There's scarcely a sorrow I have not borne, 
Yet none were so bitter, quite, as my first; 

The world accords us the right to mourn 

In all other trials. But now I've come 
Where all life's cruelest troubles cease ; 

To the tempered pleasures and safety of home. 
And sweet reward of the aged — peace! 

I'm happy? Yes, darling. I've outlived wounds, 
But never hopefulness ; that holds sway. 

Life's music tones to the softest sounds; 
And I bear in my bosom a bird alwaj' — 

The longed-for hour is hastening to me 
When I shall meet him again, I know, 

In his own dear country beyond the sea. 
My true love who left me long years ago. 

18S7 



154 



NEEDS 

What are life's requisites? The first, nobility; 
Honor that keeps the spirit of a law, 
Not searching out some manner of escape 
Through letter-flaws; honor that holds as dear 
Our friend's, our neighbor's interest as our own. 
Next in the scale, to me, fidelity. 
Faithfulness to our whole environment. 
The hand, the task, the place that gives us bread — 
Ay, means of life ! but better yet than this 
Is the proud faithfulness that does the task, 
That speaks the word, or keeps a silent tongue 
Whole-heartedly, for faith's own royal sake. 

And, to me, courage next. (I do not claim 

These values absolute; I only paint 

The scale as it presents itself to me.) 

Courage to keep regret, complaint, excuse, 

Behind the teeth ; to speak out hope and cheer ; 

To challenge slander; to refute a lie; 

Defend the absent; champion a friendless cause 

In face of blame, or bitterer! ridicule; 

Courage to bear a present agony, 

Or face a threatening future; or live down 

A shadowed past, with silent dignity. 

And very needful is sweet cleanliness 
Of mind and eye, especially of speech ; 
Many there are who sedulously keep 
The body and its raiment finely clean, 
Yet seem to wholly miss that delicate 
White purity that does not see nor speak 
Any more than it will do an evil thing. 
155 



And I conceive fine humor as a need. 
Spontaneous laughter, guiltless of the blight 
Of hateful malice or vulgarity, 
Is as divine, as much a gift of God, 
As speech, or tears, or song! Most requisite 
Is love of beauty; we should early train 
Young ej'es to see, young hearts to reverence 
Beauty, the star-eyed angel of the Lord. 
Well does old Plato call the beautiful 
"The glory of the True." It is indeed 
The glory of all life! I sometimes think 
This is the glory that the Master meant 
In the rich climax to that ringing phrase 
That closes the great prayer He made for us. 
In very truth we need the beautiful! 

You look at me, you eager altruist, 

With whom the modern cry of "Brotherhood" 

(And 'tis a noble cry!) is paramount — 

And speak with mixed reproach and wonderment, 

"You leave out love!" and I look calmly back, 

And answer calmly, "Friend, love holds all these, 

And is composed of these, if it be love indeed!" 

I sometimes weary of your altruism ; 
Not too much stress, perhaps, is laid on love, 
But far too little on those virtues fine. 
Our fathers held most sacred : loyalty. 
Honor, courageousness, and purity. 

These are life's requisites, as I see life! 
And after these come lesser, smaller things; 
Material ease; wealth, station; happiness. 
Ah, happiness! another modern cry! 
156 



"The right of every soul to happiness!" 
But is it happiness we clamor for, 
Or the fulfilment of our dear desires? 

Give me not happiness, but rather, Peace ; 
The acquiescence of a quiet trust. 
Shall we forget the princely voice that cried, 
"Seek first the Kingdom, and all other things 
Shall be vouchsafed, according to your needs"? 

Colorado Springs 
1914 



157 



THE CHILD OF GALILEE 

(Anno Domini Scptem) 

He strayed Elsdraelon's field beside — 

A little lad with an angel face, 
A shadowless forehead, wise and wide, 

And lips with curves of exquisite grace, 
And large clear eyes of a wondrous light. 

Measureless depth and purity, 
And the steadfast calm of a soul whose sight 

Pierces the veil of futurity. 
Ah, fortunate Syrian skies that smiled 

Upon him ! and fortunate grass and flowers, 
That kissed the feet of the fairest child 

That ever played in this world of ours ! 
No halo encircled the bright young head; 

He seemed to his neighbors like other boys, 
Comelier, truly, and nobler bred. 

But a sharer of all their griefs and joys. 
In all their innocent sports most skilled — 

A brave little lad, who knew not fear, 
Yet ever loving and gentle-willed. 

And loved in return. When He drew near 
The children's quarreling always ceased ; 

They greeted him, happily clamorous; 
They said, "We are better, more easily pleased, 

When Jesus Bar-Joseph plays with us!" 

Often wistful, and sometimes sad 

(Though sometimes, also, his laugh was heard 
Ringing out suddenly, sweet and glad, 

And clear as the note of a forest bird!) 
He lived his innocent childhood through ; 
158 



None guessed that a fairer day at last 
Had dawned for the world; they only knew 

That it seemed more beautiful when he passed. 
And the tender Jewish mothers laid 

Their hands on the heads of their little ones; 
And men remembered their sins, and prayed, 

And spoke to each other in milder tones. 

Birdlings and bees on fearless wings 

Came to that Nazareth child uncalled; 
And weak, and wounded, and outcast things 

Trustingly to his 3^oung feet crawled. 
The beggar, crouched by the village tree. 

Reaching for alms with insistent cry. 
Forgetting a moment his misery, 

Hushed his voice when the child went by ; 
For better to him than bread or gold 

Was the tender smile that upon him shone. 
He thankfully whispered, "I seem less cold 

Than I was, but a little while agone!" 

Sometimes the road from the distant sea 

Shook to a mighty, portentous sound — 
Tramp of the Roman soldiery 

That echoed the conquered world around! 
They passed through the land they'd coveted 

Scorning its people overthrown. 
Though meeting, in each of the conquered. 

An answering scorn, that matched their own ! 
But where the hills of Nazareth rise 

The disciplined eyes would glance aside 
At a boy who greeted them friendly-wise. 

No hate nor scorn on the forehead wide'; 
Steadily on, but in nobler mood, 
159 



With a strange, new touch of humility, 
The world's grim conquerors passed, subdued 
By the spell of the Child of Galilee! 

Often the joyous children band 

A hideous form by the wayside saw — 
A warning waved by a spectral hand — 

And heard the cry of a strange old law. 
From the sight of that ghastly, blighted head— 

The saddest that eye could look upon. 
Even the children shrank in dread, 

Saving Bar-Joseph, the fearless One! 

Sometimes a woman with weary face, 

Pale with sorrow, and worn with sin. 
Paused the light little footprints to trace, 

Moaning her broken heart within: 
"I could be healed of my sinfulness. 

By the touch of a mouth so undefiled!" 
Sank to her knees and touched his dress, 

Pleading brokenly, "Kiss me, child!" 
And the same pure lips, that, so holy clean, 

At Mary's side in the twilight prayed, 
Granted the kiss to the Magdalene; 

And greeted the leper, unafraid ! 

The mourner, the stricken of leprosy, 

The sinner; the meanest that could live, 
He ministered to; no alms had he, 

But he gave them all that he had to give — 
Only a draught from the wayside spring, 

Only a smile from the wondrous eyes. 
But it eased their hunger and sorrowing, 

And changed to paeans their heart-sore cries I 
1 60 



Oh, the centuries sped since then! 

Oh, the wickedness, strife and woe! 
But ever nobler the hearts of men 

Have grown through it all, and still shall grow! 
The world moves, lovelier day by day. 

Knows more goodness, and does less wrong; 
Hideous ignorance fades away; 

Might is weaker, and right more strong; 
The future shall yet outweigh the past, 

And humanity's heart shall live to be 
Wholly purified, healed at last 

By the touch of the Child of Galilee! 

Greenwood, Colorado 
1897 



161 



VALE 

O LOVED and lost! While grief is new, 

When first our eyes are wet, 
We wildly plead a sign from you 

To show you love us yet! 

Half maddened by the solemn hush — 

All blinded by our tears — 
Our breaking hearts, rebellious, rush 

Against Death's barriers, 

And beat upon the iron wings 
With pleading moan and cry. ' 

But from the far side, Echo brings 
No whisper in reply! 

Till passion sinks to misery. 
We sob, with weary breath — 

"All portals yield to love's strong key 
Except the gates of Death !" 

And so, from the relentless door, 

We turn to life again ; 
Lift up its heavy cross once more, 

And learn to say, "Amen!" 

Rest, loved ones, in your quiet bed, 

Reached but by memory; 
Between the living and the dead 

Communion should not be, 
162 



We would not call you back to woe 

From your surcease of tears, 
Nor would we that your hearts should know 

The story of our years, 

Filled overfull with toil and care, 

With bitterness and rue. 
'Tis but our joys we'd have you share, 

Our joys, so rare and few! 

So be it, then, 'tis better thus. 

Complete be your release ; 
All undisturbed by thoughts of us. 

Rest, dearest, rest in peace ! 

Gilette 
iSgg 



163 



TO THOSE IN PAIN 

O LONELY heart in hopeless silence grieving 

Over those nameless woes that deepest lie, 
Hour after weary hour, without receiving 

One touch of sympathy — 
Courage, poor heart! If you but suffer purely, 

Seeking to draw the central good from pain — 
Believing in that good, I tell you surely 

You shall not mourn in vain. 

And though the stony path grows still more dreary, 

The cruel blows fall faster than before — 
Till your storm-beaten spirit, bruised and weary, 

Moans, "I can bear no more!" 
Courage, poor heart! When come your darkest 
hours, 
When the supreme, last bounds of pain you've 
crossed, 
You'll feel God's strong hand, through the dark, 
clasp 5^ours, 
And know all is not lost. 

And you shall find, out of the depths returning. 

Your fainting, dying soul revive at length; 
And day by day its lesson slowly learning. 

Ascend from strength to strength. 
For those whose barques on pleasant seas have 
bounded, 

Foam beauties of the surface may suffice ; 
They only, who the lower deeps have sounded, 

Shall hold the Pearl of Price! 

J It man 
igoo 

164 



HUMORING ECHO 

Echo! Echo! Art thou here? 
(Echo crieth drearily) 

"Echo , . . here!" 
Prithee, pause a moment there. 
(Echo sigheth wearilv) 

"Moment . . '. there. ..." 

Echo, art thou ever fleeing? 
(Echo mutters ■wearily) 

"Ever . . . fleeing!" 
Ever seeking, never seeing? 
(Echo utters drearily) 

"Never . . . seeing ... !" 

Crouching lonely in the gorge? 
(Echo crieth tearfully) 

"In . . . the . . . gorge!" 
Ansvi^ering the pine tree's dirge? 
(Echo sigheth fearfully) 

"Lonely . . . dirge!" 

O'er the meadow, by the rill ; 
(Echo cries) 

"The . . . meadow . . . rill!" 
Tell me, dost thou seek him still ? 
(Echo sighs) 

"Seek . . . seek . . . him . . . still!" 

What ! To find Narcissus rov'st thou ? 
(Echo utters fearfully) 

"What . . . Narcissus!" 
Fie! O nymph! Narcissus lov'st thou? 
(Echo mutters tearfully) 
"O Narcissus!" 

165 



Fairest, but most shallow youth? 
(Echo crieth loyally) 

"Fairest . . . youth!" 
Can'st thou hold him dear, in truth? 
(Echo sigheth royally) 

"Dear . . . in . . . truth!" 

Ah, poor Echo ! Foolish maid ! 
(Echo sighs) 

"Ah . . . poor . . , poor . . . maid!" 
Worshiping a fickle shade. 
(Echo cries) 

"A . . . fickle . . . shade!" 

Echo, hast thou crossed the mountain ? 
(Echo mutters wearily) 

"Crossed . . . the . . . mountain!" 
Sought Narcissus by the fountain ? 
(Echo utters drearily) 

"By . . . the . . . fountain!" 

Leaning o'er, with drowned locks wet? 
(Echo crieth woefully) 

"Drowned! . . . Narcissus?" 
Hast thou found Narcissus yet? 
(Echo sigheth joyfully) 

"Found Narcissus!" 

Fairbrook Ranch 

ll 



1 66 



DE PROFUNDIS 

Out of the deeps I cry to Thee — 

Stay of the vanquished ! Lord of Hosts ! 
Deeps of my own iniquity, 

Manifold discontents, mistrusts. 
Doubting, defeated, bh'nd I stand, 

Conquered by my own baser sense. 
God of my Fathers! Reach thy hand, 

Unbind my eyes, and lead me hence! 

Governed by what is worst in me — 

By selfish hopes and puerile fears — 
I yield my strength, mine energy. 

To petty contests, sordid cares; 
Give not enough to what is worth 

The strife, too much to trivial claims. 
God of the conflict! Lead me forth 

To wider views and higher aims! 

Yet oftentimes I hate the ill, 

Resolving, in vainglorious mood. 
To reach the best, forgetting still 

Thou art the only source of good ! 
I yield Thee not due reverence, 

Yet from the deeps I cry to Thee — 
God of the highest, noblest sense! 

Though I forget, forget not me! 



Greenwood 
igoi 



167 



AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 

{Dedicated to "The Girls of Montgomery Hall," 
luho sent the roses) 

All things in Nature are most dear to me, 
Seven, I think, are dearer than the rest; 
Cherished through all my life with wistful joy; 
A sort of rapture, not unmixed with awe. 

I like to fancy, lying here alone 

In the white silence of the hospital, 

How the Creative Spirit, long ago. 

Walked quietly about the morning world. 

And wrought sweet deeds amid the brooding hush. 

How lonely was that world ! How clean, austere ! 

Free, then, from our corroding human touch 

That since has marred the Great Face everywhere, 

Wounded and torn the sweet flesh of the earth. 

Smirched it with stains of toil, of sin, of woe! 

Many conjectures please my eager thought 

Anent the manner of the bringing forth 

Of Earth's dear marvels, most especially 

The seven treasures that I deem so fair. 

I think it was a silent, mystic night 

In the rich month that now we know as June, 

When wind and waves were hushed, and moonlight's 

sheen 
Folded the whole in an enchanted sleep, 
He thought of ferns, and stooping, touched the soil 
With a soft word; straightway by every stream, 
The delicate fronds uncurled, and leaned to look 
At their reflections in the moonlit pools. 
And their pure fragrance floated on the night. 
i68 



In a half-sportive mood, one dreamy day, 

Musing beneath a stately conifer, 

He plucked green leaves, and shaped and molded 

them 
In tiny, graceful forms. Fairest of all 
Within His palm the dainty acorn lay; 
He, gazing thereupon in calm delight 
Thought the great oak tree into happy life, 
Decreeing that its kingly strength should be 
Transmitted through this finely shapen toy; 



I've always thought 'twas some bright morning 

hour 
When joyous winds were racing down the slopes. 
And turquoise waters dancing in the sun, 
That He created birds, and sent them forth 
To add another note to harmony. 
Then, in the tender hush of eventide 
He called them in, and taught them, one by one, 
To wisely fashion those dear mysteries. 
Whose secret, known but to the feathered breast 
Is still the ernblem of the sweetest ties, 
The purest, tenderest, of human life — 
Of home, connubial love, and parenthood. 
And so the bird's nest came. 

Beside a stream 
With crystal waters, willow shaded coves, 
Drawing its silver ribbon down a bright 
Sweet meadow, set with azure gentian cups. 
He bent and smiled, and on the stream's fair breast 
A snow-white form went slowly drifting by — 
Of perfect grace, of utter loveliness — 
And lo ! the swan was here. 
169 



Again He walked 
Through the hushed aisles, the emerald solitudes 
Of a great forest; in an oval glade 
Among the birches, cool and mystical, 
He paused and reached a tender, beckoning hand ; 
Then from the green and golden silences. 
With noiseless feet that scarcely bent the moss, 
And large eyes fixed on Him in loving trust, 
The deer came forth, and all the forest trees 
Clapped hands for joy; indeed the whole glad world 
Was gladder for these darling presences. 

And in a pearly dawn, when wreaths of mist 

Waved over grove and dale, and half revealed 

The granite turrets of an inland range. 

While lingering stars yet gemmed the violet 

Of the mid-sky, while the horizon burned 

From daffodil to gold and amethyst 

And amber, where a flock of rosy clouds 

Fluttered, to herald the approaching sun. 

He sat beside the ocean. Buoyant waves 

Ran shoreward, breaking on the shining beach 

In feathery spray that fell with melody. 

And then He pleased Himself with the command 

That the remote world underneath the sea 

Known but to Him, seen only by His eyes. 

Forever more should be most beautiful 

With forms that hold all grace that form may 

wear — 
Of spiral, curve and angle, and all shades 
Of color granted to the upper world : 
The brilliant sheen of jewel, flower, ore, 
The dainty tints of forest-nurtured leaves. 
And so that world possessed the exquisite, 
Unearthly beauty of the ocean shell. 
170 



There came a noon, when earth and sea and sky 

Were painted with the opal's fervent hues. 

All things were read)', and the fruitful world 

Was waiting for tlie creature that should be 

Created in His likeness. On a peak 

With grand, sheer slopes, clothed only with the 

grass, 
He stood enrapt. A breathless hush prevailed ; 
All Nature knelt in reverential awe. 

He looked into futurity and read 
The strange, dark story of the years to be: 
The first dim gropings of the creature, man ; 
His long, laborious climb to skill, to power; 
The rise and fall of many a dynasty : 
The light of Greece; the majesty of Rome: 
The Inn at Bethlehem — and Mary's face! 
John at the fords of Jordan; Martha's house . . . 
Jerusalem . . . iGethsemane . . . The Cross! 

And all the weary years that should succeed — 

The awful wrongs committed in His name: 

The torch — the rack — the hideous rage of war; 

The slow, slow growth of good, the loss, the woe! 

Foreseeing all, accepting all. He laid 
His will on the Eternal Altar steps. 
In one great act of all-embracing love. 

When that hour passed, and life drew breath again, 
Earth's bosom wore the loveliest wonder yet— 
A flower with royal head bent, as in prayer; 
With petals folded, radiant leaf on leaf, 
Over the starry secret of its heart, 
Whose very fragrance was a voiceless hymn; 
Whose beauty in itself was perfect praise! 
171 



O flower of consecration! Flower of love! 

Of purest passion and of richest pain! 

Symbol of earth's one faultless Life — the Rose ! 

Bethel Hospital, Colorado Springs 
October, jgi4 



GOD KNOWETH WHY 

Why should the one thing that I want most lie 
Just out of reach, or, as if wilfully, 
Be given to one who needs it less than I, 
While I stand wistful, empty-handed, by? 
God icnoweth why. 



The work I planned to do for other's sake, 
The cheen', helpful song I tried to make. 
Are taken from me, and not given back, 
While I down silent paths my way must take. 
I know not why. 



My earnest prayer remains unanswered ; 
The blow I looked for, and of which I said, 
"I will be patient," falls not on my head, 
And one I dreamed not of is sent instead, 
I know not why. 

But shall I murmur, "Why should these things be?" 
No, not again! For I have lived to see 
The thing that's sent me is the best for me; 
The thing I pray for may not always be. 
God knoweth why. 



The song I hoped would make all hearts rejoice, 
In finer words, and by a sweeter voice. 
Is sung, but I am always left the choice 
To soothe some pain-wracked soul to calmer poise. 
God knoweth why. 
173 



The work I planned, and gladly would have done, 
Is nobly finished by some worthier one; 
A simple task, that I, and I alone 
Am free to do, is sent ere set of sun, 
I know not why. 

I know not why, but this indeed I know — 
Down all our stoniest paths His footsteps go 
Ever before ; that He lays naught on us, 
He hath not borne Himself. And ever thus. 
For every treasure that He takes away, 
He sends a richer gift some other day, 
If we but try to bear with pain and loss 
In the same spirit that He faced the Cross! 

For every loyal deed, each patient sigh, 
He gives an hour of gladness, by and by ; 
For every self-forgetting tear or smile. 
He sends a gracious blessing afterwhile. 
For all we yield or do in reverence 
To Him, He makes us tenfold recompense. 

Not by our poor deserts {His standards by 
They weigh as sand-grains!) but by love most high. 
Richly and freely and forgivingly 
He metes to all of us; — He knoweth why! 

Siloam 
1905 



174 



WORLD PRAYER— AUGUST, 191 4 

God of our Fathers! In these years 
Whose like the world has never known, 

When Love must stoop to glean with tears 
The crimson fields by Hatred sown — 

When fear lies coiled on every hearth ; 

When all men's hearts are filled with care; 
The roar of all surrounding wrath 

Drowning all sounds that sweetest were — 

When Right is manacled by Power, 

Freedom in chains, her pennons furled — 

Crime rampant — in this woeful hour 
Have mercy on thy erring world ! 

Beneath thy sky benificent. 

On all the bright earth blessed by Thee, 
There is no sea, no continent. 

From the encroaching shadow free. 

Must the young century sublime — 

The flower and crown of every age — 

Whirl backward on the wheels of time, 
Revert to medieval rage? 

The pride of every nation's heart, 
The fruit of gifted hand and brain. 

The splendid tools of science, art. 
Give place to the red sword again? 

And all the life of which we boast. 

The gathered wisdom of the years, 
The beauty and the grace, be lost — 

Drowned in a sea of blood and tears? 
175 



We prated of our Christian faith; 

Of racial barriers overthrown; 
Now, in this reign of fear and death, 

We are indeed at last made one! 

Fused in a strange, new brotherhood, 

An awful bond of agony — 
O Power supreme ! O only Good ! 

We lift imploring hands to thee! 

Give us true courage while we pray; 

Invest us with the strength to stand 
Rock-firm in honor's menaced way. 

Speed Thou the right in every land. 

Leave us not helpless pawns of chance! 

Enlist us under reason's rule. 
Give us a wide, clean tolerance. 

Keep the tongue calm, the pulses cool. 

Be with us, Ever-living One! 

Be Thou our guide till conflict cease. 
Beneath the banners of Thy Son, 

Lead, lead us forth to righteous peace! 

Cripple Creek 
August, igi4 



176 



THE FROST SPIRIT 

Late in the still October night 
Downward to Earth on shining wings, 
The spirit of the frost time stole, 
Pausing awhile in upper air 
To fill the sky with deeper blue, 
And trim the lamps of watching stars. 
Then onward hasting, through the dark 
Another light rose to her feet. 
And isle-strewn waters, wide, rich lands. 
With happy meadows, brooding woods. 
Aspiring hills, grew visible. 

With loving eyes the angel gazed, 

And murmured rev'rently and low, 

With down-bent head, the ancient words — 

" 'Tis good!" And tenderly she stretched 

A blessing hand across the peaks. 

That by her magic touch became 

High priests of God, in brilliant robes 

Kneeling, with hoary heads upraised 

To heaven. Then with noiseless feet 

Down to the sleeping vales she passed, 

And through sweet-smelling autumn fields 

Went searching with a careful eye 

That slighted not the tiniest 

Nor humblest of that goodly folk 

That dwell in garden, field, and wood. 

With vivid gold she dashed the green 
Of all the forests, and transformed 
The somber vines to amber wreaths 
That daintily festooned the boughs. 
177 



She kissed, until they redder blushed, 
The bright mementoes of the rose; 
And stooped to turn the moss-grown stone. 
And paint the little timid leaf, 
That trembling grew within its shade. 
In hues so rich that mortal hand 
Had dared not mimic. 

Softly touched 
The few late flowers, and whispered them 
"Sleep, little ones!" and laid them down. 
Last, with a slower step she walked, 
Lightly across the limpid dews. 
And lo! where'er her fair feet trod, 
The grass was strewn with diamonds! 

Now, as the angel of the day 
Unfurled her banners blue, the frost 
Turned her flight heavenward, but cast 
Sweet glances backward at the world, 
Murmuring softly o'er her work: 

"Lovely art thou, Oh, Autumntide! 
Rare through thy lifetime, bountiful 
With all good promise at thy birth, 
When downy cheeks of plums first blush, 
And grain fields, courtesying to the wind. 
Bow in pretended homage low, 
To proudly show their yellowing plumes. 
Fair in thy radiant maidenhood, 
When fruit and flowers take brighter hues, 
And birds begin to sing of flight, 
And Easter daisies bloom again. 
Grand in thy ripe maturity. 
When woods are decked with varnished nuts, 
And rich grapes purple on the wall, 
178 



And from the fruitful meadows in 

The wains come, heaped with sheaves of gold, 

While the soft air of afternoon 

Thrills to a music fresh and sweet — 

The gleaner's thankful "Harvest Home!" 

Now I array thee in thy last, 

But richest robes, to glad the eyes 

Of thy old sire, the dying year. 

Soon shall my sister angel come 

And lay each growing thing away, 

And lock the brooks with gleaming weirs, 

And fold earth's bosom in her snows. 

Rocky Mead Ranch, Colorado 
October, J 881 



179 



AN EASTER GUEST 

A BROODING hush on Nature lay 

One April evening long ago. 
The birds flew slowly down the way, 

Their parting song was faint and low ; 
With unused softness hummed the bees, 

And all the busy insect kind; 
The scent of budding flowers and trees 

Breathed in the scarcely stirring wind; 
Spring's old, sweet promise filled the land. 

Of lovely summers, fruitful years; 
Her smile was seen on every hand — 

A brave smile, but it shone through tears ! 
A sort of tender wistfulness, 

All Nature wore — not wholly sad, 
As conscious of new blessedness. 

Yet not quite able to be glad. 
The earth with new-born hope seemed kissed, 

And yet a sad remembrance bore 
Of one dear Human Presence missed, 

And to be missed, forever more! 

But strangers to all hope that day 

Were two who walked to Emmaus. 
With languid steps they trod the way, 

In mournful tones they communed thus: 
"Can these things be, and is it true 

He hath appeared to Magdalene? 
The tomb is empty, that we knew, 

But He by none of us was seen ! 
Ah, was He the Messiah indeed? 

It seemed most real e'er He died ; 
But — Israel's claim He did not heed ; 

And — how might God be crucified? 
1 80 



But whether the Messiah or not, 

Without him all is doubt and pain ; 
All life with keenest anguish fraught. 

Oh, to behold His face again! 
So, mourning for their vanished Friend, 

They passed up from Jerusalem, 
And, as they neared their journey's end, 

A kingly stranger greeted them ; 
Grave was the voice, low-toned, but kind ; 

Sad was the face, but wondrous sweet. 
Not yet their mortal eyes might find 

The nail marks in the hands and feet! 
They thrilled with awe — "He seems most wise, 

A mighty Rabbi!" was their thought; 
Their hearts burned in them, but their eyes 

"Were holden," and they knew Him not! 
He walked beside them as they walked, 

He spoke of truths they long had known, 
But, as the wondrous Stranger talked, 

A light unguessed upon them shone; 
Their own home village, seen at last, 

Seemed suddenly all glorified ; 
The bounds of heavenly life they'd passed. 

That evening, though they had not died ! 



He paused the village gate beside. 

And turned as if to leave them there. 
"It grows toward the eventide. 

Abide with us!" Their wistful prayer 
Found gracious answer, and at meat 

They three sat down, the gentle Guest 
Taking the midmost, honored seat. 

Blessing the food, at their request. 



i8i 



With reverent hearts they heard his word, 

Behold! on lifting up the head, 
Their Master — Friend — their risen Lord, 

Known in the breaking of the bread ! 
O happy meal! O priceless boon! 

He blessed, and disappeared from them; 
In joyful awe, they hastened down 

The changed road to Jerusalem, 
And ran their brethren sad to meet, 

Hailing them in a rapturous voice — 
With the first Easter greeting sweet — 

"The Lord is risen, indeed! Rejoice!" 

O Heavenly Stranger! Be our Guest! 

Abide with us, as with that pair. 
Here at our lowly homestead rest, 

'Tis rich indeed, if thou art there! 
Sit with us at our homely board, 

The frugal meal shall be a feast; 
Wlien Thou art a partaker, Lord, 

The plainest fare is sweet to taste. 
Walk with us on our daily way, 

Dear Guest, Consoler, Helper, Guide! 
Each day shall be a Sabbath Day, 

The way all fair, with Thee beside. 
Life is not sad ! Though care and pain 

Be still our portion, all is w^ell. 
Good triumphs when we entertain 

Thee as our Guest, Immanuel ! 

Siloam 
1905 



182 



